But NSIDC seems to be thinking differently in their March 3, 2010 newsletter. They say Antarctica is cooling and sea ice is increasing (makes sense – ice is associated with cold.)

Sea ice extent in the Antarctic has been unusually high in recent years, both in summer and winter. Overall, the Antarctic is showing small positive trends in total extent. For example, the trend in February extent is now +3.1% per decade. However, the Amundsen and Bellingshausen Seas show a strong negative trend in extent. These overall positive trends may seem counterintuitive in light of what is happening in the Arctic. Our Frequently Asked Questions section briefly explains the general differences between the two polar environments. A recent report (Turner, et. al., 2009) suggests that the ozone hole has resulted in changes in atmospheric circulation leading to cooling and increasing sea ice extents over much of the Antarctic region.

The NSIDC graph below shows the upwards trend in Antarctic Sea Ice. Some recent years have shown anomalies as high as +30%.

While there’s no dispute that there’s some sea ice loss in the Antarctic peninsula, all signs seem to point in the opposite direction of what some what have you believe about Antarctica as a continent.

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348 thoughts on “NSIDC Reports That Antarctica is Cooling and Sea Ice is Increasing”

I can’t believe I’m among the first to comment!
Cooling Antarctica? Warming Arctic? So what? Perhaps we should just take the “Global” out of “Climate Change” and “Warming”, then we could all agree that climate does change, and warming can occur, but at different times and rates in different places. Climate is regional.
A good slogan might be- Climate Change- not new, not much, and not scary!

Nice one Steve:
This does show the cherry picking going on, now to get this across to the politics in Washington.
One thing u forgot was to mention the “error bars” that THEY left out!
the scale is -.1 to +.1 but the error factor is +/- .05!!!!!!
no significant warming over this time frame!!!!!
good luck
Tim L

Darn it! How is the ocean going to rise 20 feet and flood everthing per Al Gore if Antarctica doesn’t hurry up and melt! Maybe Al should spend some of his carbon credit booty spreading soot over the Antarctic ice cap so that he can actually be right about something for once in his life.

Sorry but I couldn’t get past the first little bit.
“has been losing more than a hundred cubic kilometers (24 cubic miles) of ice each year since 2002” and that “if all of this ice melted, it would raise global sea level by about 60 meter (197 feet).“
where did all the ice go? If it didn’t melt does that mean its floating in the ocean? Last time I checked floating ice has to displace a larger volume then if it melted ( else it would sink and still displace sea water raising the seas). Or did it evaporate at such a rate it escaped earths gravity?

But NSIDC seems to be thinking differently
The NASA article and NSIDC are talking about different things. The land-supported ice shelf and the floating sea ice. In fact, the NASA article says that sea ice is increasing.

While this increase in Antarctic sea ice is interesting, it as strong an upward slope as the downward slope in the Arctic sea has been since 1978 or so. Still, in merits watching. Every AGW model shows that at some point, Antarctic sea ice will follow along with the Arctic sea ice and show a decline by sometime later this century. The Ozone hole issue may be causing some of this growth, or it could be something else entirely. I will watch the Antarctic sea ice closely in the next few years, and if the increase continues, or the Arctic Sea ice begins to grow again (on an annualized basis), over several seasons, my faith in the AGW hypothesis will be diminished.
Meanwhile, at 14,000 ft. in the troposphere, global temps have set new 20 year record highs every day in March, and 2010 remains on track to be the warmest year on instrument record. Along with the long term condition of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice, these kinds of troposheric records I watch closely. I’m sure AGW skeptics would say it is all El Nino related, for it certainly isn’t a super-active sun. But it is exactly in line with AGW models, so this too, must be considered by an honest observer.

Dave F, Thanks, it is NOAA. And I found it.
“NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources.”

The radius of Earth is 6400km so the surface area is 3.14*4*6400^2 or 5e8 sq km. if 70% is ocean thats 3.5e8 sqkm of ocean surface. 100 cubic km of ice per year will raise the sea level by 100/3.5e8 km = 2.9e-7km which equals 0.29mm per year. Since 2002 is 8 years so a total rise of 2.3 mm.
I realise the initial report is countermanded by the later one but even if it were correct the rise of 60 meters at the rate indicated would take a while:- say about 200,000 years!!!!
Seems a shame they missed that little tidbit.

I would caution you to distinguish between Antarctic *continental* ice — which the first article you cite claims to be decreasing — and Antarctic sea ice, which has been increasing. Sea level is affected by the first, unaffected by the second.

NASA’s Explanation
January 12, 2010
“There has been lots of talk lately about Antarctica and whether or not the continent’s giant ice sheet is melting. One new paper 1, which states there’s less surface melting recently than in past years, has been cited as “proof” that there’s no global warming. Other evidence that the amount of sea ice around Antarctica seems to be increasing slightly 2-4 is being used in the same way. But both of these data points are misleading. Gravity data collected from space using NASA’s Grace satellite show that Antarctica has been losing more than a hundred cubic kilometers (24 cubic miles) of ice each year since 2002. The latest data reveal that Antarctica is losing ice at an accelerating rate, too. How is it possible for surface melting to decrease, but for the continent to lose mass anyway? The answer boils down to the fact that ice can flow without melting.”
For more on the subject, seehttp://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/view.php?id=42399

The bottom line is that there is no long term discernible trend towards warming at all in the Antarctic. The hypothesis of AGW requires that rapid global warming be obvious (“robust”, ahem) and all the IPCC-approved climate models show rapid warming at both poles.
What does one call a hypothesis that fails to yield useful predictions of observed data?

Guess Steig, et al., were wrong about the warming Antarctic after all, claims of advanced math notwithstanding.Jeff id was right, to wit, “There it is, we can now say conclusively that the positive trend in the Antarctic reconstruction comes primarily from the well known peninsula warming trend .”
And now the NSIDC apparently agrees. Who’d have predicted that?

The hits keep on coming — a regular hits’ parade.
Antarctica is getting cooler and ice is expanding.
AGW is melting like the wicked witch of the West in the Wizard of OZ.
And all it took was a pale of water — in this case facts and evidence — who would have thunk it…

wes george (21:38:17) :
The bottom line is that there is no long term discernible trend towards warming at all in the Antarctic. The hypothesis of AGW requires that rapid global warming be obvious (“robust”, ahem) and all the IPCC-approved climate models show rapid warming at both poles.
What does one call a hypothesis that fails to yield useful predictions of observed data?
=======
Sea ice is only part of the story
“Gravity data collected from space using NASA’s Grace satellite show that Antarctica has been losing more than a hundred cubic kilometers (24 cubic miles) of ice each year since 2002. Gravity data collected from space using NASA’s Grace satellite show that Antarctica has been losing more than a hundred cubic kilometers (24 cubic miles) of ice each year since 2002. The latest data reveal that Antarctica is losing ice at an accelerating rate, too. How is it possible for surface melting to decrease, but for the continent to lose mass anyway? The answer boils down to the fact that ice can flow without melting.”
For more on the subject, seehttp://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/view.php?id=42399“

Sea ice forms at lower latitudes and lower elevations (i.e. warmer places) than the continental ice, which exists at colder places closer to the pole and at higher elevations.
This article is about sea ice, but it should be apparent that it would be impossible for a region of sea ice to be growing and nearby continental ice to be melting.

wes george (21:38:17) :
The bottom line is that there is no long term discernible trend towards warming at all in the Antarctic. The hypothesis of AGW requires that rapid global warming be obvious (“robust”, ahem) and all the IPCC-approved climate models show rapid warming at both poles.
What does one call a hypothesis that fails to yield useful predictions of observed data?
=======
Data collected by NASA’s Grace satellite show that Antarctica has been losing more than 24 cubic miles of ice each year since 2002.”
For more on the subject, seehttp://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/view.php?id=42399“

“A recent report (Turner, et. al., 2009) suggests that the ozone hole has resulted in changes in atmospheric circulation leading to cooling and increasing sea ice extents over much of the Antarctic region”
Is this a joke? The ozone hole was ‘discovered’ in the late 1970’s through early satellite data. Are we to assume, therefore, that prior to discovery by man the ozone hole did not exist or did not affect atmospheric circulation?

So…the man-made CO2 would have killed off all the penguins, but the man-made hole in the ozone layer saved them. Man giveth and man taketh away. Man is a powerful deity! Worship services to be held at ten o’clock Sunday morning at the “Tabernacle of The Mercenary Missionaries”.

Whenever displaying linear regressions it should be mandatory to give both the standard error of the estimate and the correlation coefficient (r). Knowing this and the number of data points you can determine whether the linear relation is statistically significant. I seldom see the correlation coefficient value given. Any decent peer review should be demand this. Any statistical package will spit out a linear regression for you, but is it statistically significant. If the data points vary widely there is not much point in putting stock in any linear relation.
For those who may wish to know more about statistics and linear regression, a very educational and quite easy to follow explanation can be found at Concepts and Applications of Inferential Statistics:http://faculty.vassar.edu/lowry/webtext.html.
In particular Chapter 3 on Correlation and Regression.

Of course the cooling of Antarctica has been known for years by actual thermometer readers. And it is a bit scary. Luckily the sea will protect the planet from the worst effects, but this cooling does not bode well for us all. Frankly, this planet does not need the wheat fields of Argentina, nor the fruits of Chile shriveling up.

“These overall positive trends may seem counterintuitive in light of what is happening in the Arctic”
How is intuition relevant to data ? … or perhaps they feel the negative trend in the Arctic is counterintuitive to what is happening in the Antarctic ?

Steve Goddard (22:06:34) :
Sea ice forms at lower latitudes and lower elevations (i.e. warmer places) than the continental ice, which exists at colder places closer to the pole and at higher elevations.
This article is about sea ice, but it should be apparent that it would be impossible for a region of sea ice to be growing and nearby continental ice to be melting.
=====
NASA says
“The answer boils down to the fact that ice can flow without melting.”

R. Gates (21:19:02) : But it is exactly in line with AGW models, so this too, must be considered by an honest observer.
Popper would say “Nonsense!” My less charitable retort would be bleeped despite it having the attributes of being accurate and concise.
One cannot pick and choose which parts of which models seem to correlate and then claim model validity. The model either works in the aggregate or it does not. This is not nuanced. There isn’t anything there but black and white. And the models pushed in the IPCC reports fail to predict a cooling antarctic.
When faced with a cooling antarctic a while back some of the realclimate apologists claimed “we knew this” and then offered “proof” by way of a newer more accurate experimental model that took some new data into account as well as lunar phase, day of the week, price of gas, and jaw angle. I’m pretty sure that if I fed new data into a model and then tweaked it by hand until it screamed, I too could “predict” the obvious and thereby claim that condition X (whatever the data was the past year or so) was “consistent.” This is especially true if one claims that the antarctic will warm +/- 3 degrees (i.e. it may cool, warm, or even do nothing, so you cover all possible bases.)

Just to put a bit of perspective in, Antarctica is seven times the area of Greenland. It is estimated Greenland was losing around 70km^3/year a few years ago. Five times the rate of loss in Antarctica.
Ice flows downhill. I wonder where the alarmists think it used to flow to before man set fire to coal…

Why does no one mention the very possibility that Antarctica could be subsiding 0.7 mm/year instead of assuming loss of ice over the continent? Or could it possibly be a combination of both? The satellite is measuring height. That 0.7 mm would, over 14,000,000 km, equate to 100 cubic kilometers of ice loss also but would mean no ice has actually been lost. Can the Grace satellite’s instruments measure to this incredible precision. That is to 9 or 10 digits. Don’t know, will have to read the Grace instruments user, calibration, and specification manuals and procedures; NASA usually makes these public. And Grace was launched in 2002 which is when the ‘trend’ began. What? That questions immediately a possible secular drift. Just don’t foolishly accept statements tossed without concrete backup.

Steve Goddard (22:37:15 I don’t find the Ozone hole story very convincing,http://i255.photobucket.com/albums/hh133/mataraka/ozoneap.jpg Why would summer temperatures in Antarctica be affected?
Transport inbound due to an enhanced polar vortex. and because it is getting smaller each year
1979-2009 DU minimums.http://i255.photobucket.com/albums/hh133/mataraka/anacticozoneduanomalies.jpg
There is some interesting studies in causal mechanisms eg Callis et al 1998
Sinnhuber et al 2006 have some discussion on this. Abstract. Long-term measurements of polar ozone show
an unexpectedly large decadal scale variability in the midstratosphere
during winter. Negative ozone anomalies are
strongly correlated with the flux of energetic electrons in
the radiation belt, which is modulated by the 11-year solar
cycle. The magnitude of the observed decadal ozone
changes (20%) is much larger than any previously reported
solar cycle effect in the atmosphere up to this altitude. The
early-winter ozone anomalies subsequently propagate downward
into the lower stratosphere and may even influence total
ozone and meteorological conditions during spring. These
findings suggest a previously unrecognized mechanism by
which solar variability impacts on climate through changes
in polar ozone.: http://i255.photobucket.com/albums/hh133/mataraka/Sinnhuberetal.jpg

The USGS article by Williams, Richard and Ferrigrio states the volume of the ice caps is as follows:
1. Greenland (Arctic): 2.6 million cubic kilometre (7.9% of total world)
2. Antarctic: 30.1 million cubic kilometres (91.5% of total world)
The average annual (Source: NSDIC) thickness of sea ice in the Arctic and Antarctic is respectively 2.5 and 1.5 metres and their maximum extent is16 and 19 million square kilometres. In other words, the average volume of sea ice is around 1.54% and 0.01% respectively of their associated ice caps.
I don’t really see how minor changes in the maximum and minimum extent of the sea ice is any cause for concern. The Antarctic sea ice has been increasing marginally in recent times, while the Arctic sea ice has been decreasing at a slightly faster rate. However, we do not have any records worth a damn prior to 1960, and therefore cannot make any statistically significant conclusions on whether or not (more likely) this changes mean anything.
The WUWT (AMSR-E) accompanying chart of Arctic sea ice extent suggests we may have a small chance of achieving an 8 year maximum extent record sometime over the next few weeks – if this does happen, there are two things we can be absolutely sure of: 1) it won’t be reported on any alarmist websites, or ii) if it is reported, it will be cited as another example of proof of AGW.

Wren (21:37:09) :
NASA’s Explanation about Antarctic ice volume changing, ‘The answer boils down to the fact that ice can flow without melting’.
It can also flow without much heat change. So what is the importance of ice extent measurements anyhow?

This article says, ‘A January 12, 2010 Earth Observatory article warns that Antarctica
“has been losing more than a hundred cubic kilometers (24 cubic miles) of ice each year since 2002” and that “if all of this ice melted, it would raise global sea level by about 60 meter (197 feet).“’
This pair of apparently linked quotes seems erroneous on its face (8 years x100 cubic km of ice couldn’t possibly raise global sea levels 60m). But the article quoted does not actually say this, as the “this ice” of the second quote refers not to the 800 cubic km of the first quote, but instead refers to the total ice overburden of East Antarctica, making it a much more plausible assertion:
“Two-thirds of Antarctica is a high, cold desert. Known as East Antarctica, this section has an average altitude of about 2 kilometer (1.2 miles), higher than the American Colorado Plateau. There is a continent about the size of Australia underneath all this ice; the ice sheet sitting on top averages at a little over 2 kilometer (1.2 miles) thick. If all of this ice melted, it would raise global sea level by about 60 meter (197 feet).”
Mr. Goddard’s article should be rewritten to correct this unfortunate (I hesitate to say deliberate) quoting error.

I calculate the surface area of water on earth at 70 % of a sphere with radius 4000 miles= .7 X 4 X 3.14159 X 4000 X 4000 =140,743,232 sq miles. 24 cubic miles of ice has .9 X 24 X 5280= 114,048 sq miles by one foot of water. Dividing 114,048 sq mi ft by 140,743,232 sq mi gives (sq mi divides out) .000810 ft of rise in sea water… or is there an error in my calculations. With that in mind, 197 ft (estimated rise) divided by .000810 ft (calculated rise) gives an error of (feet divide out) 243,111 X 100 or 24,311,100%. with this in mind would it be a gross under statement to say Earth Observatory made a gross overstatement of the rise in sea level caused by melting ice??

Geoff Sherrington (00:13:54) :Wren (21:37:09) :
“NASA’s Explanation about Antarctic ice volume changing, ‘The answer boils down to the fact that ice can flow without melting’.”
It can also flow without much heat change. So what is the importance of ice extent measurements anyhow?
It can also disappear without melting. Good ol’ sublimation happens in dry air, and when fresh snowfall doesn’t replace the sublimated ice, the result is — a net loss of ice volume.
Question: Does NASA track annual total snowfall in Antarctica?

It seems to me that reading both the pros and cons that the “honest” climatologist’s answer should be “we don’t know, but we’re working on it”.
And how can we say anything intelligent about something, the climate, that has 22 000 year cycles after 40 years of accurate measurements?
What, to me is disproved, it that co2 is causing “runaway” global warming.
And I would like to know how people are already saying that 2010 will be record hot, when it’s only March. Are they astrologers or something?

The “Global Warming” Machine Just Keeps Running…
The world will almost certainly fail to draw up a new treaty on climate change this year, the minister in charge of last year’s Copenhagen summit has admitted, delivering a heavy blow to hopes for a swift global ­settlement.
Connie Hedegaard, the Danish minister who masterminded the summit of world leaders on global warming last year and is now the European commissioner for climate change, says negotiations were not progressing fast enough for a treaty to be signed soon. She also gave warning that pushing too hard for a treaty this year could be counterproductive.
“To get every detail set in the next nine months looks very difficult,” she said. “Europe would love that to happen, and I would love that to happen … but my feeling is that it is going to be very difficult to get a treaty.”
Governments had been hoping to forge a final treaty at a global conference this December in Mexico, after failing to do so in Copenhagen. However, Ms Hedegaard said this was more likely to happen at a follow-up meeting next year in South Africa. That would still allow governments to meet their self-imposed deadline of forging a new agreement before the end of 2012, when the current provisions of the world’s only existing treaty on greenhouse gas emissions, the 1997 Kyoto protocol, expire.
Ms Hedegaard defended the Copenhagen summit, which attracted loud criticism, especially for the chaotic way in which it finished. She said that calling world leaders to the long-running negotiations had ensured rapid progress towards the end, when for the first time developed and developing countries mutually agreed limits on their emissions. But she said there would not be another Copenhagen-style summit. “You can do such a thing one time,” she said. The price of failure, if diplomats attempted to force an agreement this year, was too high, Ms Hedegaard said. “People would say let’s skip that idea, let’s skip the UN thing,” she said.
She also defended climate scientists, saying the handful of flaws in the 2007 report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the e-mails in which scientists talked of concealing data did not affect the large body of scientific evidence amassed over decades.
The UN climate talks have been going on since 1992, when world governments signed the first legally binding treaty aimed at avoiding dangerous levels of climate change. The Kyoto protocol failed because it did not impose obligations on developing countries and was rejected by the U.S.
***************************************************************************
If the majority of political leaders are stupid enough to still believe in all the lying propaganda about man-made global warming, then maybe it’s time for the cockroaches to have a go.

Antarctica “has been losing more than a hundred cubic kilometers (24 cubic miles) of ice each year since 2002”

Spread over the 14 million km2 of Antarctica, that amounts to an average reduction of ice thickness of just over 0.7 mm. Anyone who believes it is possible to accurately measure so small a loss of ice from a satellite is kidding themselves IMHO.

As long as we are calculating… Wikipedia says “The total area of Greenland is 2,166,086 km2 (836,109 sq mi), of which the Greenland ice sheet covers 1,755,637 km2 (677,676 sq mi) (81%) and has a volume of approximately 2,850,000 cubic kilometres (680,000 cu mi).” then 680000 cu m X 5280 ft/mile = 3,590,400,000 sq mi ft of ice. Then 3,590,400,000 sq mi ft X .9 (density of water) divided by (see above) 140,743,232 sq mi = 23 ft. rise in sea level. Provided all the ice in Greenland melted and every one with beach front property built a levee of 25 feet… now don’t you feel better ? But to stay on topic, on order to get a 197 foot rise in sea level, we would need to melt the equvalent of 197 divided by 23 or 8.5 times the ice on Greenland.

R. Gates (21:19:02) :
[….]
But it is exactly in line with AGW models, so this too, must be considered by an honest observer.

As water goes through a phase change from a gaseous vapor to a liquid and from a liquid to a solid snow and ice, it liberates an extraordinary amount of thermal energy. When this phase change from a warmer water vapor or liquid to a colder solid snow and ice occurs in the troposphere, a certain amount of that thermal energy must be radiated into space. Consequently, a satellite in orbit around the Earth whose instruments are used to detect the emission of thermal energy is going to see this radiation of thermal energy being radiated from the cooling water precipitates. Since the Northern and Southern Hemispheres have both been experiencing colder than usual weather and record precipitation of rain, snow, and ice in recent months; it must be expected that an orbital satellite must see extraordinary emissions of thermal energy to correspond with the extraordinary cooling of the precipitates. In other words, when the Earth is cooling it must radiate elevated levels of thermal energy to space where the satellite instruments can record the thermal emissions resulting from the cooling.

It can also disappear without melting. Good ol’ sublimation happens in dry air, and when fresh snowfall doesn’t replace the sublimated ice, the result is — a net loss of ice volume.
The argument is not whether the Antarctic is losing ice. It is whether it is getting warmer.
Adding extra sea ice is pretty much contradictory to it getting warmer. If you want to show warming, then you need to answer this directly, not change the subject to another area.
Speculation of sublimation causing the loss of shelf ice doesn’t do that. It may well be that because it is colder, in general, that less snow is falling, as the air passing over is less moist. Which means the losses to wind are not being replaced. So losses of shelf ice to sublimation could well be proof of cooling. You need to show otherwise, not speculate.
(BTW the vapour pressure of water at Antarctic temperatures is pretty low. I bet more actually just blows off.)

Question: I have heard Ian Plimer et al claiming that the ice on Greenland and that in Antarctica is in a basin. If this is so, surely all one would end up with if it all melted is a couple of huge inland seas, would it not? I am sure there would be a few valleys thro which water could escape, but for it all to escape to the sea would be highly unlikely. Besides, as others have calculated it would take around 300,000 years to melt, meaning that it wouldn’t happen at all as three ice-ages would have occurred in the meantime, followed by three inter-glacials, and likely three new human civilizations to boot (Or whatever we mutate into in that time frame)!

Never before in human history have so many world leaders come so close to looking like total prats. They all know this climategate affair came within a hair’s breadth of becoming the biggest scientific and political scandal in world history and one which would forever stain the hands of those who went to the Jokenhagen Circus. Think about it! 50 trillion dollars being thrown away on the say so of a few “scientists” so incompetent they threw away vital data and couldn’t e.g. answer simple FOI requests. And these world leaders got to walk away into the snow storm without serious collateral damage.
Who was really responsible for the mess at the CRU and US meddling? It was Brown and Obama, and if the sceptics had really been the superb big-oil backed lobby machine, these two wouldn’t been held directly accountable for the mess their governments created and more than likely one or the other would have been forced to resign.
They know they got away with it by the skin of their political teeth, and they know they probably will not get away so lightly next time!

Naturalverities (00:26:16)
“Mr. Goddard’s article should be rewritten to correct this unfortunate (I hesitate to say deliberate) quoting error.”
The extended quote you base this assertion upon includes this tidbit
There is a continent about the size of Australia underneath all this ice;
The area of Australia is about 7.7 million km2, Antarctica’s area is somewhere close to 14 million km2. You may not find that this kind of basic ignorance damages your confidence in the scientific abilities of these folks, but I’m not so sanguine.

Well, as long as I am still awake… from Wikipedia again “Greenland ice sheet covers 1,755,637 km2 (677,676 sq mi) (81%) and has a volume of approximately 2,850,000 cubic kilometres” and “The Antarctic ice sheet… covers an area of almost 14 million square km and contains 30 million cubic km of ice.” then 30,000,000 divided by 2,850,000 = 10.52 times as much ice on Antarctica as Greenland. So, we would have to melt 73% of the ice on Antarctica and Greenland to get a 197 ft rise in sea level, if and only if everyone with beach front property built a levee of 200 ft height. The conclusion is Earth Observatory needs an editor who can distinguish the difference between 100 cu km of ice and 23,980,500 cu km of ice.

DocWat (00:54:18) :… or is there an error in my calculations.
You’re basically correct, but 197 ft (estimated rise) divided by .000810 ft/yr = 243,000 years at this rate to melt Antarctica if it never snows again. (watch units)

Shona is right on. What do 40 years or so of observations of weather say about climate? Only that the pace of “change” (I prefer the term evolution) is well within the historical proxy parameters of the last 2,000 years, ie the natural variability that brought us the LIA, various minimums and the MWP.
This, in and of itself, is counter to the implications of the AGW hypothesis which predicts unprecedented warming MUST be occurring since circa 1950 well outside of historical precedents…rationally, that this is not the case is reason enough for falsification.
What does one call a hypothesis whose forecasts are not confirmed by observed events?

There is an interesting “review” article regarding collapsing ice sheets in this months Geoscientist magazine. This is the Geological Society’s popular magazine rather than a journal, but interesting none the same.http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/gsl/site/GSL/lang/en/pid/7209
The bye line is “Cliff Ollier takes issue with some common misconceptions about how ice-sheets move, and doubts many pronouncements about the “collapse” of the planet’s ice sheets”.

Even Hollywood snubs Global Warming
“HOLLYWOOD, Calif., March 9 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The month of Avatar versus Hurt Locker Oscar predictions came to a close on March 7th with the Hurt Locker overtaking Avatar for Best Picture and Kathryn Bigelow trumping James Cameron for Best Director, causing environmentalists to see red. If you are one of the dozen people who haven’t seen Avatar yet, the environmental message shines through the jaw-dropping special effects – the dangers of global warming, respecting Mother Nature, and environmental resource management.”http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/oscars-avatar-snub-sparks-voting-frenzy-at-green-globe-film-awards-87099587.html
I heard the news and it didn’t twig until afterwards – particularly as I’ve not seen Avatar. But when it gets pointed out: environment versus war movie, and the war movie won!! There’s even a book out with some maniac climate scientists as the baddy. What next? A film of climategate whereby some weatherman saves the world from the clutches of man and evil scientist hell-bent on taking over the world?

As a Louisiana boy (and proud fan of the Saints) The elevation of my home is about 100 ft above sea level. So I worry about high water. From Wikipedia: “The surface of the state may properly be divided into two parts, the uplands and the alluvial. The alluvial region includes low swamp lands, coastal marshlands and beaches, and barrier islands that cover about 20,000 square miles (52,000 km²). 100 cu km of ice (24 cu mi) or 114048 sq mi ft divided by 20000 = 5.7 ft. so with proper terracing we could cover the entire state of louisiana with 5.7 feet of water. Hey! that is great! I am 6 feet tall.

Weather!
What makes Antarctic land ice grow? Snow and rain!
What makes it move? Gravity!
What makes it melt? Warming!
What makes it to freeze? Cooling!
So how does the boring disregarded weather affect both ices. Cooling for sea ice! Snow and temperarutres below zero for land ice.
Weather made arctic ices disappear 2007 strong long similar winds transported the ice out of the straight.
Do we now how much the weather increased/decreased the landice in Antarctica? No! Do we now how long the “delay in or more rapid movement is conected with landice? Wheather plays an extreme important role in how the poles changes. The proof is at hand in the Arctic this year!
Can anyone remeber the time long long ago before the “climate hype” when observations of the weather ment anything and explanined everything?
Now adays tables are turned…”Climate” is explaining weather? Climate is supposed ti explain shifts in the poles.Its time to go back to basics! Weather is basic!

Antarctic is a dynamic system, like australia it is a desert with only about 100mm of ice per year accumulating at the pole up to 1m at the coast , up .45 m of ablation occurs annually due mainly to wind blown ice particles flowing into the oceans.
” A database of accumulation values for 5365 gridpoint locations with 50 km spacing is interpolated from the isopleth map, giving a bulk accumulation of 2151 Gt a−1 and a mean of 159 kg m−2a−1 for an area of 13.53 × 106 km2. Following the implementation of deflation and ablation adjustments applicable to sectors of the coastal zone, the accumulation values are reduced to 2020 Gt a−1 and 149 kg m−2a−1.”
glacial ice flows move glacier ice to the oceans at rates up to 2m per day so between ice flow & ablation for the antarctic ice sheet to remain static 2100 gigatons of ice has to flow off the continent each year. ie 2100 billion cu m.
the coastline of the antarctic is about 15000 km.
thats a lot of icebergs say 300 sq km per annum at 100m thick.http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/igsoc/agl/2000/00000031/00000001/art00028http://bprc.osu.edu/Icecore/kees99-1.pdf

Note to Earth Observatory: I was raised in Webster Parish Louisiana, Area 595 sq mi. If you could figure out how to contain the water, your 24 cu miles of ice would cover that parish with 191 feet of water. How ever the 41,000 people who live there would not be happy.

Shona (01:05:34) :And I would like to know how people are already saying that 2010 will be record hot, when it’s only March. Are they astrologers or something?
You don’t think that “or something” has anything to do with the fact that “they” have their fingers controlling the machines measuring what defines what “hot” is? You’ve got a good question, how do they already know ten months in advance?

Sea ice is floating on warm water, the base of the ice being in thermal equilibrium with the sea water. If that water gets just a little bit warmer, you’re going to get a lot more melting, with the floating ice turning into more water. Big deal, the displacement remains the same so sea level doesn’t rise significantly.
Ice on land is not in thermal equilibrium with anything that is above melting point so the same rules don’t apply. During the winter the sun doesn’t reach Antartica at all for 6 months. It is also high up. Consequently winter temperatures are -60Celsius. But the Summer only gets as warm as -30Celsius. SO HOW CAN THE LAND ICE MELT!!!!
It can’t. The earth would have to warm enormously for ANY of the land ice at Antartica to melt at all. But notice how the doom-merchant scientists are all so happy to conflate melting sea ice with the concept of rising sea levels due to melting land ice. It’s nonsense, and this hokum is just designed to pull the wool over the eyes of those that are suggestible and easily hoodwinked by the snake-oil salesmen. Why they are doing it I can only guess, but these “scientists” are not to be trusted.

I’d love to see the data that they are using to claim that the globe warmed again in 2009-2010 winter.
The CBC was making the claim that Canada had a very warm winter this year. I’d love to see their data.
Anyone where the data sets for these groups are kept?
What I find really annoying is that people go on the airwaves or the media and make all these wild claims, many of which are counter intuitive, without any supporting data or links to web pages that show their work IN FULL DETAIL! It’s at the point where I now always want to see their work in full detail just to understand what they are saying and to have a chance at seeing what games they are playing fast and loose with the data or statistics or interpretations.
Obviously North America has had a strange winter with the south being really cold and Canada allegedly having a bit warmer of a time although I don’t recall the news about that as the cold was happening up here in the great white north (in Vancouver we call it the Great Green North… puff).
Strangely the forecast for Tuesday March 9th (10 days after the Olympics ended) is a 40% chance of snow flurries for Greater Vancouver Area including the local mountains which were devoid of natural local snow during the games! Also the cherry trees were blossoming over the weekend a wee bit early… last week it was 12c this week it’s -4c! Yikes spring interrupted as usual in Vancouver.

R. Gates wrote: “Meanwhile, at 14,000 ft. in the troposphere, global temps have set new 20 year record highs every day in March, and 2010 remains on track to be the warmest year on instrument record. Along with the long term condition of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice, these kinds of troposheric records I watch closely.”
Are these record temperatures because increased cloud cover below 14,000 feet is reflecting more heat upwards or at least preventing it from going downwards? In other words is the widespread cold/cloudy/snowy N. Hemisphere winter producing this heat upsurge at higher levels?
This would fit with the theory of more clouds when the sun is quiet. It would also fit the observations that heat discharge from the sun does not change a great deal (why AGW supporters reject it as a major cause of warming I think).
Similar heat volume coming in from the sun but less heat reaching the ground = higher temperatures higher up in the atmosphere. The heat has to go somewhere. It is simply that more of it is blocked off from reaching the ground.
So ironically could it really be that ‘hottest year/month on record’ = coldest year month on record’ but in a different place, i.e. at a different altitude?

Two separate issues:
Climate is real
Climate Change is a misnomer
—————————————————————-
Climate Science, the study of weather and climate.
Climate Change Science, the product of hearsay and propaganda.
—————————————————————-
Two separate scientists:
Climate Scientist, studies weather and climate.
Climate Change Scientists, issues hearsay and propaganda for a collective cause.
—————————————————————–
It is very easy to tell the difference between a Climate Scientist and a Climate Change Scientist. All Climate Change Scientists suffer from a condition known as Illusory Superiority complex, think Mike hockey stick Mann, Mad hatter James Hansen, Phil my shadow scares me Jones etc.
Climate Science is real. Climate Change Science is an illusion for the collective scientific misfits that would be found out about in an instant in any other branch of science.

Clearly the 30 year Antarctic trend is increasing. Another hit to GW.
By the way, :), are there readers here who could give Donna Laframboise a hand?http://nofrakkingconsensus.blogspot.com/2010/03/help-audit-un-climate-report.html
Hope you WUWT does not mind my recruiting here. If so, just delete this post.
I think it would be interesting to check some references. This way the IPCC will never again think nobody is ever going to take the time to check them out.

I think Wayne nailed the problem (strange Antarctic ice loss measured using satellite). I happen to live in an area where the land is rising after the last ice age. In southern Finland this is ca. 3 mm/yr. It has been estimated that the ice layer here was 1 … 2 km thick during the ice age. A 0.7 mm/yr subsiding is actually a very small value compared to the presently measurable opposite process here. Further north where the ice melted later and where ice layers may have been thicker the land rises 10 mm/yr.
Perhaps this could provide a starting point for an alternative way of looking at the ice cover of Greenland. By measuring the sea level over a long time at a few points along Greenland’s coast one should be able to directly see if the ice load on top of Greenland increases or decreases.

Anthony,
I am about to show you why understanding the mechanics of what is happening in the antartic and planet is important.
We have been studying this planet as a circle and not a rotating body. The factors of a rotating body are much more different.
The axis of the planet runs through this area. Now because the planet rotates, the equator has a much larger measurement of distance in circumference. As you go to the poles the planet is smaller and smaller in distance in circumference.
The prevailing winds would always be moving one way. Notice the ice build up is consistant to forming on the side where least wind and waves would break them up.

The agonizing death rattle of AGW.
Mr. AGW, he dead.
…-
“EU climate chief delivers treaty blow
The world will almost certainly fail to draw up a new treaty on climate change this year, the minister in charge of last year’s Copenhagen summit has admitted, delivering a heavy blow to the barely flickering hopes for a swift global ­settlement.
Connie Hedegaard, the Danish minister who masterminded the summit of world leaders on global warming last year and is now the European commissioner for climate change, told the Financial Times negotiations were not progressing fast enough for a treaty to be signed soon.
She also gave warning that pushing too hard for a treaty this year could be counterproductive.
“To get every detail set in the next nine months looks very difficult,” she said. “Europe would love that to happen, and I would love that to happen … but my feeling is that it is going to be very difficult to get a treaty.”
Her pessimism echoed that of the outgoing United Nations climate change chief, Yvo de Boer. He told the FT as he resigned last month after four years of seeking an agreement that he could not see a treaty being signed this year.”http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2466962/postshttp://www.bluelikeyou.com/2010/03/08/how-will-climategate-affect-earth-hour/#comment-76592

NASA says
“The answer boils down to the fact that ice can flow without melting.”
————–
Reply:
That’s a rather weird sentence; melted ice isn’t ice at all; it is water.
Everybody knows glaciers don’t stop moving in their wintertime. Solid rock flows all the time–at sufficient P & T it becomes plastic and deformation ensues. Most of the earth below the crust (called the Mantle) is plastic. Note: glacial ice is actually a “rock”; it meets the definition of a monomineralic rock; individual ice crystals in continental or glacial ice qualify as individual mineral entities.
Should Antarctic ice loss be factual, I see several possibilities:
1. There is actually a “tipping point” in ice flow; a warming of ~1 degree increases the rate of plastic deformation.
2. The Antarctic ice sheet is being warmed from beneath by an increase in subsurface continental heat flow. (Recent studies indicate some of the valleys in the Antarctic continent are actually filled with liquid water.)
3. The earth is suddenly spinning faster, causing centripetal forces to push ice to the periphery of the continent.
However, as Ryan Stephenson pointed out above, Antarctica is way below freezing in the summer months and much colder in the winter months. Besides, what warmth is imparted to the surface of the Antarctic during the summer isn’t going to penetrate that vast ice mass very deeply.
There may be some validity to my point #2 above, but the others are unsubstantiated. And I don’t see how ice loss in the Antarctic can be tied to the moderate warming the earth has experienced since the last Little Ice Age.

Question?
Why would the Ice cap melt when the air temp is normally below freezing?
Reading Jon Stephenson’s book ‘Crevasse Roulette’ about the first Trans – Antartic Expedition, I was impressed by the depth of this ice and the temperatures experienced by these men and their machines.

Steven (and other experts):
Interesting, but I have a question regarding the role of the ozone layer. The NSIDC claims that the Antarctic sea ice increased because of cooling due to the ozone hole and refers to a report by Turner. I have been reading parts of that (very lengthy) report and it states that in recent years there was no further decrease (perhaps even some recovery) of the ozone. So how can the ozone hole be held responsible for the continuing 3% yearly increase of sea ice there?? As far as I can see the ice increase has certainly not flattened since let’s say 1995.

Naturalverities,
People like Al Gore and James Hansen have done everything they could get people alarmed about massive sea level rise from melting ice caps. When Hansen’s organisation – NASA – publishes an article about Antarctic melt, saying “if all of this ice melted, it would raise global sea level by about 60 meter (197 feet).“ they are fanning the fire.
Perhaps the NASA article should be rewritten? Sea level is rising at 30 cm/century, considerably less than the average for the last 16,000 years.

There is an interesting push-pull going on between the Arctic’s and Antarctica’s magnetic fields. There are 3 distinct periods each lasting about 120 or so years (AMO period ~ 60 years).http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC14.htm
1600 to 1720+intensities of the vertical Z GMF are moving in opposite directions with the North changing at twice the rate.
1720+ to 1840-50 both North and South Zs are falling at roughly same rate.
1850 onward the North Z has hardly changed, while the South Z has lost about 20% of its value.
Considering that the strong ocean currents in both areas (Circumpolar in Antarctica and number of currents in the Arctic sea) are controlling transfer of hearth along oceans’ conveyor, it is possible that above referred variations, would have (electro-magnetic) effect on the saline currents velocities, and so have noticable impact on the regional temperatures anomaly.
More GMF graphs: http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GandF.htm

A follow-up article on this Anarctic trend (which agreed, is not statistically significant in the long run) would be to find atmospheric/oceanic conditions that trend in correlated ways. That coupling may indeed be significant. I would be fishing around for data tied to that rather large body of water circling said ice trend and would also be asking questions about atmospheric oscillations one might find at that pole. The fact that Europe was cold this winter and Washington DC got loads of snow may not offer much understanding of Antarctic ice oscillations. One thing is for sure, the IPCC report has little to offer us in this area.

Applying my climate theory this is what should be happening:
i) Normally the Arctic will warm and the Antarctic will cool during a period when the climate system is gaining energy. Vice versa when the climate system is losing energy as now. Pointing to a relatively warm troposphere is not relevant here because a warm troposphere is generally an indication of net overall system cooling as energy leaves the oceans faster on it’s way to space.
ii) The reason for the two poles behaving differently is that one is an ocean surrounded by land and the other is land surrounded by ocean as I have explained elsewhere.
iii) I consider that the climate system entered a cooling mode around 2000 as evidenced by the start of a shift in the air circulation systems equatorward. That would be consistent with the Antarctic interior starting to become lesss cold.
iv) During a cooling period the air circulation systems wander more latitudinally than during a warming period because the expansion of the tropics does not constrain their latitudinal movements so much. Consequently one sees more flows of air into and out of the polar regions than occurs during a warming period.
v) So now what is happening is a slightly less cold Antarctic interior probably resulting in greater sublimation (but not melting) of ice in the interior but at the same time the outflowing cold air over the surrounding oceans is creating more sea ice.
Remember that the Antarctic is not a single climate zone. The interior is a climate zone of it’s own but the sea ice areas around it are an entirely separate zone.
Furthermore during a global warming period one would expect the sea ice to reduce as the interior becomes colder because the faster and tighter wind flow around the Antarctic will eat away at the margins of the sea ice constantly and the sea ice will not be renewed by so many cold outflows from the interior.
Thus both reports could be correct (though I doubt the suggested scale of the ice loss in the interior) and in accordance with my climate description. It is merely the interpretations that are wrong.

The map shows a blue to red difference of just 0.2 degrees, how on earth can such a tiny fraction of a degree be actually measured and what is the margin of error.
It seems supremely idiotic and not a little desperate to resort to measuring in tiny fractions and using the red/blue colours to enhance the effect, I wonder what the colour map would look like with single degree increments?

I should mention that the situation is rendered more complex when the speed of the outward flow of energy to space is contrained as possibly is now happening with the less active sun but that’s for another day and is explored more fully elsewhere.
I can envisage queries on my post (05:41:44) unless that factor is taken into account.

So. It seems that Nature, at one time, allowed scientific debate:
Brief Communications
Nature 432, 290-291 (18 November 2004) | doi:10.1038/432290b; Published online 17 November 2004
Atmospheric science: Early peak in Antarctic oscillation index
Julie M. Jones1 & Martin Widmann1
The principal extratropical atmospheric circulation mode in the Southern Hemisphere, the Antarctic oscillation (or Southern Hemisphere annular mode), represents fluctuations in the strength of the circumpolar vortex and has shown a trend towards a positive index in austral summer in recent decades, which has been linked to stratospheric ozone depletion1, 2 and to increased atmospheric greenhouse-gas concentrations3, 4. Here we reconstruct the austral summer (December–January) Antarctic oscillation index from sea-level pressure measurements over the twentieth century5 and find that large positive values, and positive trends of a similar magnitude to those of past decades, also occurred around 1960, and that strong negative trends occurred afterwards. This positive Antarctic oscillation index and large positive trend during a period before ozone-depleting chemicals were released into the atmosphere and before marked anthropogenic warming, together with the later negative trend, indicate that natural forcing factors or internal mechanisms in the climate system must also strongly influence the state of the Antarctic oscillation.
1. Institute for Coastal Research, GKSS Research Centre, 21502 Geesthacht, Germany
Correspondence to: Julie M. Jones1 Email: jones@gkss.de

Stephen Wilde
Quote: “”ii) The reason for the two poles behaving differently is that one is an ocean surrounded by land and the other is land surrounded by ocean as I have explained elsewhere.””
exactly
The Arctic is effected by wind, water. It’s mostly floating.

Glaciers expand and flow towards the ocean (like in Antarctica and Greenland) when their mass is increasing in the interior. Diminishing glaciers are characterized by retreat, not expansion.
As far as the gravity measurements go, they are very questionable, because there is no bedrock reference point under the ice for the vast majority of the continent. The tiny measured gravity changes could be due to isostasy or tectonic movement rather than ice loss.

Vukcevic (05:25:59) :it is possible that above referred variations, would have (electro-magnetic) effect on the saline currents velocities, and so have noticable impact on the regional temperatures anomaly.
No, it is not possible. The electric currents induced by weak conductor of sea water moving through the Earth’s magnetic field is MUCH to weak to have any effect, as any electric engineer [or just high-school science] could have told you.

What if the water cycle is not closed but opened?. During summer time above the pole and due to increased radiation, atmosphere´s oxygen is turned into Ozone (O3), which during winter time and specially when there are proton flares from the sun or increased cosmic rays, as during solar minimums (mainly composed of protons-90%-, which, btw, we must remember are Hydrogen Nucleii), then these react with ozone to produce water 2H+…O3=H2O+O2 and increase the “Ozone Hole” once again , then snow fall increases ice. So we have an ice cube making machine over there.

I would suggest that its time to go back to the drawing board, when you have one of the worlds leading scientific organizations quoting 0.7 mm on a land mass larger than Australia, is this not comic strip science ? The weight of the ice would be enough to double this, were are they basing there calculations, from the earths diameter ? bedrock ? the earths center ? water level ? or maybe a model ? No, its a satellite measurement, and that is it. 0.7 mm is about the space of the 2 mm’s I know this is 2010, but we are still waiting for Buck Rodgers !

wayne (02:13:52) :
Thanks! I see my error. Antarctica is melting at 100 cu km/yr and, assuming no further accumulation, sea level will rise .000810 feet per year. Then, sense 2002 we could have had a sea level rise of 8 X .00081 ft or .00648 ft. rise. Or reverting to metric, .00648 ft X 30.48 cm/ft = .1975 cm sea level rise. AH!! HA!! The editors, writers and peer reviewers at Earth Observatory can’t distinguish between .197 cm and 197 ft. As a former Math and Science teacher I had students like that… but none of them had PhD’s… Perhaps I was wrong in believing they never would.

Cassandra King (05:47:06) : It seems supremely idiotic and not a little desperate to resort to measuring in tiny fractions and using the red/blue colours to enhance the effect
That reveals NASA involvement in the international “climate change” conspiracy, and the same conduct is found in many official institutions around the world, as was found in the world connections of climate-gate emails: There were “partners”-presumably well funded too-everywhere.

From: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
“Antarctic sea ice reached its summer minimum, near the average for 1979 to 2000.”
Near the average for 1979 to 2000? Wow.
I wondered how they could portray the recent gains in a negative light and it appears they have just retrenched on the average for 1979 to 2000 line.
Note the graph on the top of the page showing the blue 2009-2010 line approaching the new Marginot line. Now how to portray that in a negative way….
Then towards the end, a little blurb on Double-dip Arctic Oscillation and how it will keep the ice from melting as much during the summer and setting up a reason for increased ice at the September extent.
The cherry on the top (well, at the bottom actually), is a chart of the average ice sea area on Canada’s east coast with a nice little red bar for 2010 at up to 1/6th of the height of previous years…

Steve Goddard said:
“This article is about sea ice, but it should be apparent that it would be impossible for a region of sea ice to be growing and nearby continental ice to be melting.”
This is incorrect. The two form by completely different processes and dynamics. Sea ice formation is an annual process, much more closely governed by short term fluctuations. Continental ice, i.e. glaciers, is much longer term process. The growth of shrinkage of one does not necessarily indicate the status of the other. Also, as I’ve pointed out several times when AGW skeptics get all excited about the relatively modest year-to-year growth of Antarctic sea ice, the southern sea ice has had negative anomalies within the past few years, whereas the arctic sea ice has not had a positive anomaly since 2004…i.e. the northern sea ice is shrinking faster than the southern sea ice is growing.
Having said this, I do believe it is possible for the first time since 2004 that the arctic may see a positive anomaly in the next few weeks. I’ll watch this closely, and if the arctic begins to have more frequent positive anomalies, that last more than just a year, it will strongly diminish my belief in the accuracy the AGW hypothesis. The reason I want to see if the positive anomaly (should it occur in the arctic sea ice) last more than just a year, is I believe the recent long and deep solar minimum and la nina certainly had some effect on the arctic, as well as the very negative AO index this winter. So though we may not see a new record low for arctic sea ice this summer, if we actually begin to see positive anomalies for an extended period of time, this would be very damaging to the AGW hypothesis.

R. Gates,
How could we be “on track” for a record warm year in early March?
GISS showed 2007 warmer so far, and that turned out to be a cold La Nina year. You don’t have enough information to make statement like that.

In a recent article concerning record drought in SW Australia, they explain that record snowfall at Law Dome in Antarctica is unprecedented in 750 years is likely tied to the drought. I had not read about that before but googling “law dome”+750 produces lots of results. I’ve learned (I think) that the anomaly has been going on for decades and it is this decadal +ve anomalous snowfall that breaks the 750 year record.
So, if sea ice is increasing, and snowfall (in parts) is at record levels, why does some warming in the west dominate the news? WUWT? What is the truth?

It looks like the sun has gone to sleep again, official sunspot number = 0. Not sure how long that will last this time, as it at least appears that the sun was trying to become a bit more active. Still it is interesting that we are back at 0.
This is probably upsetting to the people who perversely want a “barbeque summer” this year just to resurrect some AGW hysteria among the general public, but as even they should know by now, nature does not always cooperate with human desires.
On a slightly different topic, has anyone studied the correlation between surface temperature and tropospheric temperature to see how well they correlate? I would like to see that if it has been done.
So far it looks like the only thing that has passed a tipping point and gone exponential is the number of hits per day on Anthony’s site here, which is a good thing!

Steve Goddard said :
“R. Gates,
How could we be “on track” for a record warm year in early March?”
January and February running far above the 20 year average in tropospheric temps at all levels, with much of the time spent above the 20 year record highs for tropospheric temps. Every day in March has been above the 20 year record high for tropospheric temps at 14,000 ft for example. So my projection is based on the current trend, which if it continued, would make 2010 the warmest on instrument record. The only mechanism to cool the year would be a Mt. Pinatubo type eruption, or a sudden and strong la nina developing. In this regard, I agree with the Met office, who also still predicts 2010 will be the warmest year on record.

R. Gates,
Again, Antarctic sea ice forms at lower latitudes, elevations and temperatures than continental ice. If sea ice is expanding, then temperatures are getting colder in Antarctica, as UAH and NSIDC have confirmed. Glacial ice will not melt under conditions where sea ice is growing.

michael hammer (21:28:42) :
“The radius of Earth is 6400km so the surface area is 3.14*4*6400^2 or 5e8 sq km. if 70% is ocean thats 3.5e8 sqkm of ocean surface. 100 cubic km of ice per year will raise the sea level by 100/3.5e8 km = 2.9e-7km which equals 0.29mm per year.”
Excellent work Mr Hammer. Putting some numbers on the warmers claims certainly puts things in perspective.

R. Gates,
Again, GISS surface measurements show 2007 so far warmer than 2010, and that turned out to be a cold year. I’m still waiting to hear why satellite data shows huge spikes during ENSO events that are much smaller in the surface record.

Willis Eschenbach (22:59:29) :
For those talking above about a warming arctic and about sea ice, see my analyses here (in the Updates).
Reply:
A super summation, thanks. I missed it the first time round but now I have it bookmarked.

I guess to put all this in perspective, one should really compare the two anomaly charts between the arctic and the antarctic. First look at the arctic chart:http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.arctic.png
And then compare it to the antarctic chart:http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.antarctic.png
Now ask yourself, which, just as a casual observer, appears to show a more dramatic slope up or down? If you said the arctic you’d be right, and furthermore, the arctic has not has a positive anomaly since 2004, whereas the antarctic had a NEGATIVE one just a few months back, which is hardly indicative and any dramatic sea ice growth for the region, and that is exactly the case– the year-to-year sea ice growth in the antarctic is not dramatic, but certainly merits monitoring. I think once more, this is a case of over-hyping the case, when a more moderate “interesting but not dramatic” stance is warranted.

Wren (23:00:13) :
Steve Goddard (22:29:04) :
Wren,
Suppose for a moment that the NASA claim of 24 cubic miles per year was correct. It would take 300,000 years for the ice to melt.http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/03/nasa-still-spreading-antarctic-fud/
================
Who said it’s all going away soon?
Reply:
Isn’t that what Al Gore has been trying to tell everyone in all his talks about sea level rising and flooding cities???

Steve Goddard at 03:27 AM on 10 March, 2010
What an amazing article! You selectively edited my sentences, and forgot to attribute the claims of cooling and expanding ice to NSIDC and UAH. BTW – UAH data shows South Pole oceans cooling, not warming.http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/index.html
“Sea ice extent in the Antarctic has been unusually high in recent years, both in summer and winter. Overall, the Antarctic is showing small positive trends in total extent. For example, the trend in February extent is now +3.1% per decade. However, the Amundsen and Bellingshausen Seas show a strong negative trend in extent. These overall positive trends may seem counterintuitive in light of what is happening in the Arctic. Our Frequently Asked Questions section briefly explains the general differences between the two polar environments. A recent report (Turner, et. al., 2009) suggests that the ozone hole has resulted in changes in atmospheric circulation leading to cooling and increasing sea ice extents over much of the Antarctic region.”

MaxL (22:20:07) : Whenever displaying linear regressions it should be mandatory to give both the standard error of the estimate and the correlation coefficient (r).
Bravo! Furthermore there should be a estimate of the autocorrelation of the residuals. Time and time again these climate “anomaly trend” charts exhibit linear regressions onto what appear to be manifestly autocorrelated time series. When the series is autocorrelated any temporal trend has a much larger error bar than that for independent and identically distributed data (which is what linear regression is designed to work on).
And while we’re at it, can we stop these ad-hoc moving averages (8 years? 13 months? why?) that are supposed to “illustrate” the underlying trend.

wayne (00:03:55) :“Why does no one mention the very possibility that Antarctica could be subsiding 0.7 mm/year instead of assuming loss of ice over the continent? Or could it possibly be a combination of both? The satellite is measuring height. That 0.7 mm would, over 14,000,000 km, equate to 100 cubic kilometers of ice loss also but would mean no ice has actually been lost. Can the Grace satellite’s instruments measure to this incredible precision. That is to 9 or 10 digits. Don’t know, will have to read the Grace instruments user, calibration, and specification manuals and procedures; NASA usually makes these public. And Grace was launched in 2002 which is when the ‘trend’ began. What? That questions immediately a possible secular drift. Just don’t foolishly accept statements tossed without concrete backup.”
There is also sublimation and compaction due to age… The amount of Ice is dependent on how much it snows vs how much melts due to warm temperatures, compacts, sublimates or melts due to the weight of the ice. To me the amount of continental ice would be a function of how much snow falls and the data says not much snow does fall at least in the interior.
From the Antarctica Connection Website
Coldest Temp:
-129°F (-89°C) on July 21, 1983
Location: Vostok Station
Warmest Temp:
+59°F (+15°C) on Jan 5, 1974
Location: Vanda Station
Mean Temps:
Winter: -40 to -94°F (-40 to -70°C)
Summer: -5 to -31°F (-15 to -35°C)
Why is Antarctica so Cold?
Several factors combine to making Antarctica one of the coldest and least hospitable places on the Earth:
* Unlike the Arctic region, Antarctica is a continent surrounded by an ocean which means that interior areas do not benefit from the moderating influence of water.
* With 98% of its area covered with snow and ice, the Antarctic continent reflects most of the sun’s light rather than absorbing it. * The extreme dryness of the air causes any heat that is radiated back into the atmosphere to be lost instead of being absorbed by the water vapor in the atmosphere.
* During the winter, the size of Antarctica doubles as the surrounding sea water freezes, effectively blocking heat transfer from the warmer surrounding ocean.
* Antarctica has a higher average elevation than any other continent on Earth which results in even colder temperatures.
Blizzards:Blizzards are a typical Antarctic phenomenon in which very little, if any, snow actually falls. Instead the snow is picked up and blown along the surface by the wind, resulting in blinding conditions in which objects less than a meter away may be invisible….http://www.antarcticconnection.com/antarctic/weather/index.shtml

R. Gates (08:22:32) : “I guess to put all this in perspective, one should really compare the two anomaly charts between the arctic and the antarctic. First look at the arctic chart:.”
Thanks for that. I was going to agree with you until I superimposed both graphs and realised that the difference at the beginning is very similar to that at the end. In anycase the overall variation is still well within the decadal noise margin so it really isn’t possible to come to any really meaningful conclusion.
Another decade at the current trends and I think you will have a case, but until then let’s just wait and see!

Leif Svalgaard (06:14:30) :
“…..No, it is not possible. The electric currents induced by weak conductor of sea water moving through the Earth’s magnetic field is MUCH to weak to have any effect…..”
But of course one cannot totally exclude possibility that you also could be wrong. As this diagram shows there is a definite correlation between the ocean transport index and GMF variation.http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC5.htm

D. Patterson (01:37:51) :“As water goes through a phase change from a gaseous vapor to a liquid and from a liquid to a solid snow and ice, it liberates an extraordinary amount of thermal energy. When this phase change from a warmer water vapor or liquid to a colder solid snow and ice occurs in the troposphere, a certain amount of that thermal energy must be radiated into space….. In other words, when the Earth is cooling it must radiate elevated levels of thermal energy to space where the satellite instruments can record the thermal emissions resulting from the cooling.”
In other words when Dr. Roy Spencer showed high satellite temperature records in January 2010 it is actually show the earth is COOLING down by radiating more thermal energy thanks to the record snow and rainfall. Is that correct?http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/04/january-uah-global-temperature-warmest/

R. Gates (07:48:54) :“How could we be ‘on track’ for a record warm year in early March?”January and February running far above the 20 year average in tropospheric temps at all levels, with much of the time spent above the 20 year record highs for tropospheric temps.
From NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service, January 2010 — my emphasis:
* The global land surface temperature for January 2010 was 0.83°C (1.49°F) above the 20th century average of 2.8°C (37.0°F)—the twelfth warmest January on record. Land areas in the Southern Hemisphere were the warmest on record for January. In the Northern Hemisphere, which has much more land, comparatively, land surface temperatures were 18th warmest on record.
* The worldwide ocean surface temperature for January 2010 was the second warmest—behind 1998—on record for January, 0.52°C (0.94°F) above the 20th century average of 15.8°C (60.5°F). This can be partially attributed to the persistence of El Niño across the equatorial Pacific Ocean. According to NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center (CPC), El Niño is expected to continue through the Northern Hemisphere spring 2010.http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/?report=global
February’s data isn’t posted yet, and the archives only go back to 1998 — but it appears that the *surface* temperatures don’t justify a prediction that we’re in for “a record warm year.”

Gail said:
“In other words when Dr. Roy Spencer showed high satellite temperature records in January 2010 it is actually show the earth is COOLING down…”
??? Now that is an interesting twist. Higher temps=cooling. I can see why so many people are confused…”these are not the droids you’re looking for” or “this is not the higher temps you think they are”. Very funny!

RockyRoad (04:22:37) :NASA says
“The answer boils down to the fact that ice can flow without melting.”…..
————–
Reply:
That’s a rather weird sentence; melted ice isn’t ice at all; it is water.
Should Antarctic ice loss be factual, I see several possibilities:”
Two other commentors have pointed to this article from the Geological Society that addresses the science. http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/gsl/site/GSL/lang/en/page7209.html
The really interesting point made is“It is also worth noting the geometry and age of the great icecaps. The Greenland, East Antarctica and West Antarctica ice sheets occupy kilometre-deep basins, and the ice cannot possibly slide downhill – it has to flow uphill. ..”
And yes they do consider ice a “rock” with plastic characteristics“The threshold boundary between non-flowing ice and flowing ice marks the yield stress level. The brittle upper ice in an alpine glacier is a solid being carried along on plastic ice beneath.”

Veronica,
How about sunny and 25C for at least half of the days in summer both there and here in the Midwest of the US. Not so hot that the alarmists will bother us, but warm enough to barbeque and perhaps play a little golf. Sound good?
Since some “scientists” claim that humans can control the weather, I think they should get right on that for us!

R. Gates (08:22:32),
As Don B shows a few posts up, global ice cover is at its long term average, debunking your anomaly chart. Since the alarmist scare is global warming, not Arctic warming [which is offset by Antarctic cooling], your claim is contradicted by the chart of global ice extent. And the chart in the article here shows steady growth in Antarctic ice.
Want more? Didn’t think so, but let’s look anyway. This chart compliments the chart in the article: click
And here’s NASA’s own chart showing global ice cover rising above its long term average: click
Here’s a picture of Antarctic ice cover showing the increase over the past three decades: click. [Note the figures showing the increase]
Finally, here is a picture of the past three years of summer Arctic ice cover by the University of Bremen. A close inspection shows that Arctic ice cover is actually increasing: click. Makes you wonder if the NSIDC is fudging the numbers like NOAA does.
Since the alarmist claim is that there soon may be no Arctic ice at all is debunked like all the other global warming scares, maybe it’s time you moved on to the scare du jour, methane. That scare will be debunked too, because there is nothing unusual happening with the planet – despite what Romm, tamino, Schmidt and the rest of the rent-seeking tax suckers want you to believe.

So, as we know from our observations of the sun, global cooling is coming. I noticed here in Pretoria, South Africa that last winter was colder than usual; in fact one of our solar panels froze up. Freezing weather is strange for Pretoria. I will let you know if this winter will be colder than usual again.

Steve Goddard,
Thanks for the reply to my post, it puts the whole thing in perspective when the margin of error is many times the supposed anomoly. In my mind that isnt measurement its guess work, a 0.1 degree measurement with a three degree margin of error means that the anomoly map is little more than a politically motivated stunt.
A useless map to gauge a useless differential with no other use than to scare children and reinforce a belief system.
Btw what possible scientific use is a 0.1 degree change in an average temperature, what pysical changes will this tiny fractional change have on such a massive enviroment?

Some interesting questions arise when from the POV of an observer that antarctic glacier recession seems to have been occurring when the SH temperatures in the 19th century were “supposedly” colder then present.
Notes from transactions of the Royal society of NZ 1910.
Note on Glacier-Recession, By T. V. Hodgson. A great deal has been said and written about the retreat of the ice from north to south, and the glaciers from low to the higher levels. This has been based upon the fact that the edge of the Great Ice Barrier is some miles further south than it was when seen by Ross in 1839–40.
The various sledge parties encountered many glaciers the extremities of which do not reach the sea, or even come within reasonable distance of it. One fact must impress the Antarctic explorer, and that is the thinness of the ice-sheet and the large proportion of exposed rock. The thickness of the ice on the inland plateau is purely conjectural, and with the appliances of the average sledge party it would be impossible to measure it. Theoretical calculations have shown that ice cannot exist at a greater thickness than 3,000ft., and one feels—for one can do nothing else—when in those regions that there is no reason to believe that it might possibly be more than this.
I would ask, what right have we to accept so readily the assumption that the temperature-conditions are becoming less severe, and that therefore the ice-cap is receding? It appears to me that the evidence is very weak at the best.
To begin with the Barrier, the amount of recession is small compared to its enormous area. It is greatest on the eastern side, where we have absolutely no knowledge whatever as to the source of supply. As compared to the mountains of the west, King Edward VII Land, from the little that has been seen of it, is low-lying country, and if such should ultimately prove to be the case it may also prove to be the larger feeding-groundhttp://rsnz.natlib.govt.nz/image/rsnz_43/rsnz_43_00_0523_0494_ac_01.htmlhttp://rsnz.natlib.govt.nz/image/rsnz_43/rsnz_43_00_0524_0495_ac_01.html
Sometimes these things just happen in a random sort of way,and exhibit historical behavior without being recurrent.

Smokey,
Don B.’s chart doesn’t “debunk” anything I posted. Arctic sea ice has been in a year-on-year decline for many year, and the anomaly chart I posted, here:http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.arctic.png
Is the absolute best way to see this decline. We’ve not see a positive anomaly in the arctic sea ice since 2004, and no amount of verbal cleverness or manipulation of short term data will change that either. And despite the attempts at both sides of the issue to spin data for their own interests, I only care about the truth of the situation. Even more to the point, I have openly said that if the arctic truly starts to show long term freqent positive anomalies, then I would seriously begin to doubt my own current belief that AGW is likely a correct hypothesis. However, when either side pushes and manipulates that data, it reminds me of the used car salesman approach, and I never buy used cars from them, simply because they are so seedy.

Does it (A) “actually show the earth is COOLING down,” or does it (B) show a single factor which “contributes” to a cooling of the Earth among many other confounding factors contributing to the warming and cooling of the Earth?
It does demonstrate that the Earth is radiating extraordinary levels of infrared energy from the regions of the troposphere where water condensation takes place in the cloud systems, and those extraordinary levels of infrared energy are emitted into space from the vicinity of the cloud tops and the inversion layer in the mid-upper troposphere. The quantity and the location of these infrared emissions in the mid-upper troposphere are especially noteworthy when they occur in correlation with extensive precipitation of frozen rain and snow.
If you look at the energy required in a phase change to freeze and thaw water , you’ll see what a great difference there is between water vapor and liquid water versus frozen water. Consequently, whenever you see extensive precipitation of frozen water such as frozen rain and snow, you must expect to see a much greater release of energy than you usually see with only liquid water such as rain. It is this substantial disparity of energy absorption and emission between phase changes of water which is responsible at least in part for the Earth’s natural thermostat and limitations in temperature ranges.
R. Gates points to the satellite observations of these thermal energy emissions from the mid-upper troposphere and makes the hugely over-simplistic and erroneous conclusion and impression these satellite observations constitute evidence of the whole Earth radiating at warmer levels.
First, the 14,000 foot level is the place in the Earth’s atmosphere from which much of the Earth’s thermal energy is dumped into space by the convection of the water cycle, thereby contributing to cooling of the planet. Condensation of frozen rain and snow at about 14,000 ft. greatly enhances this transport of thermal energy to space.
Second, if R. Gates’ simplistic and erroneous assumption/s about the satellite observations were the only factor involved in determining the thermal state of the Earth, then the warmth in the troposphere would be an indication the Earth is cooling and not warming. In the real world, however, his assumption/s are utterly wrong, and the satellite observations of the 14,000 ft warmth is only an indication that precipitation events are “contributing” to cooling of the Earth at extraordinary levels. It is, however, a bridge much too far to assert this one factor predominates all of the other confounding factors to result in an overall warming or cooling of the Earth. It is what it is, just another contributing factor in an unclear overall equation.
Suffice it to conclude, R. Gates fails to understand and comprehend the information he is reading and citing, deceiving himself and others.

Leif Svalgaard (09:49:19) :
“You can make the calculation and show me wrong. The correlation means nothing.”
There is more to it than just correlation. Circulating saline water (electric conductor) in magnetic field will generate emf, electric current, new opposing magnetic field etc; result slowdown in circulation and reduction in the GMF.
On the other hand one could claim it is an irrelevant coincidence that there is dip in the Z field coinciding with centre of Beaufort Gyre, the largest and strongest gyre in the Arctic Ocean.http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC15.htm

Sorry but there is no Ozone hole. The ozone layer is thinner at the poles, that’s all. And if you read about how stratospheric ozone is formed, it is logical that the ozone layer is thinner at the poles, there is less ozone forming radiation at the poles.

vukcevic (11:30:51) :Circulating saline water (electric conductor) in magnetic field will generate emf, electric current, new opposing magnetic field etc; result slowdown in circulation and reduction in the GMF.
Do us all a favor and use simple high-school physics to actually calculate the current and the heating and the Lorentz force, and show how insignificant they are. I have done it here before, but this time you do it, to convince yourself, so you can stop this nonsense.

The Scientific Committe on Antarctic Research (SCAR) in its report “Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment” Dec 2009 http://www.scar.org says that “the sea ice extent shows a positive increase of 1% per decade”. So why would NASA say otherwise? Remember this report came out in Dec 2009!!
Also, snowfalls have remained immune to climate change being static since 1957. Temperature is also unchanged except for the Western Antarctic, which has been warming since 1800!
Nothing scary here, no pun intended!

Leif Svalgaard (09:49:19) :
vukcevic (09:03:35) :
But of course one cannot totally exclude possibility that you also could be wrong.
You can make the calculation and show me wrong. The correlation means nothing.
Not wishing to divert a private discussion, but what about unknown unknowns?

D. Patterson (10:55:31) :
Gail Combs (09:03:39) :
D. Patterson (01:37:51) :
[….] In other words when Dr. Roy Spencer showed high satellite temperature records in January 2010 it is actually show the earth is COOLING down by radiating more thermal energy thanks to the record snow and rainfall. Is that correct?….“It does demonstrate that the Earth is radiating extraordinary levels of infrared energy from the regions of the troposphere where water condensation takes place in the cloud systems, and those extraordinary levels of infrared energy are emitted into space from the vicinity of the cloud tops and the inversion layer in the mid-upper troposphere…..”
Thank you for the clarification. I am well aware that this is just one of many factors in a very complicated system. As Bob Tisdale and many others have pointed out the earth is 70% water and we can not ignore its effect on climate.

“Prof. Hansen and his colleagues argue that rapidly melting ice caps in Antarctica and Greenland could cause oceans to swell several metres by 2100 – or maybe even as much as 25 metres, which is how much higher the oceans sat about three million years ago.”
Reminds me of the 1960s.

One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small
And the ones that mother gives you
Don’t do anything at all
Go ask Alice
When she’s ten feet tall
And if you go chasing rabbits
And you know you’re going to fall
Tell ’em a hookah smoking caterpillar
Has given you the call
Call Alice
When she was just small
When men on the chessboard
Get up and tell you where to go
And you’ve just had some kind of mushroom
And your mind is moving slow
Go ask Alice
I think she’ll know
When logic and proportion
Have fallen sloppy dead
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen’s “off with her head!”
Remember what the doormouse said;
“Keep YOUR HEAD
_______________
Keep your head”

D. Patterson said:
“(R. Gates)…makes the hugely over-simplistic and erroneous conclusion and impression these satellite observations constitute evidence of the whole Earth radiating at warmer levels.”
Nope, never said the “whole earth” once, and would never say the whole earth is radiating at warmer levels, as that would be a nonsensical and erroneous statement. The troposphereic temperature data is exeptional useful and important, and my whole point in even mentioning it is because it is diplaying exactly what we’d expect in January, February, and now into March 2010, if, as the Met Office has stated, and I also believe, there is a good chance that 2010 will be the warmest on instrument record. A warm troposphere is exactly what AGW models predict, as that is where the “action is” so to speak in terms of GH forcing…i.e. that’s where the GH gases do their business. LIkewise, in the same satellite data we see the Stratosphere is cooling, and that is exactly what AGW models predict. If the troposphereic temps were falling, or the stratospheric temps rising, it would not be a good sign for the AGW hypothesis.

“09 03 2010 Alan the Brit (01:54:20) : Question: I have heard Ian Plimer et al claiming that the ice on Greenland and that in Antarctica is in a basin.”
Maybe so, maybe no. All that ice is heavy, and depresses the crust in the area. Removing the ice would result in crustal rebound. The amount of rebound would be a whole ‘nother discussion.

Leif Svalgaard
There are a lot of bright people posting on this site. I am not one of them. I try to read all the posts and discern something new and factual from them. There are many on both sides of the debate who offer interesting views and there are others who are just agenda driven. What I don’t get is that just about 100% of your posts end up with either a condescending or derisive comment. Your posts indicate a very high level of specialized knowledge, usually I have no clue what you are talking about but I think it’s time for you to lighten up.
EdP

SandyInDerby (11:44:09) :what about unknown unknowns?
To qualify the things would have to stay unknown, no?
But here is some known knowns about that:http://www.geomag.us/info/Smaus/Doc/ocean_encycl.pdf
The secular variation is 1000 times slower than the [small] daily and hourly variations calculated in the paper and its effect dB/dt is thus a thousand times smaller still. Vuk’s case is particularly sad, as he should know better, but sometimes people get so enamored by their ideas that common sense [and engineering education] goes out the window.

@Wren (23:06:35) :
“NASA says
“The answer boils down to the fact that ice can flow without melting.” ”
========================================
Wren, you’re faith in what “NASA says” is astounding. At this point in time, if NASA said the sky was blue, I’d go out side and look.

[….]
Nope, never said the “whole earth” once, and would never say the whole earth is radiating at warmer levels, as that would be a nonsensical and erroneous statement.

You did say “far above the 20 year average in tropospheric temps at all levels.” The troposphere is wrapped around the whole Earth last time I looked out the window. Let me look again….wait for it….yes, still there. You did say “at all levels”, so that appears to indicate the whole of the Earth’s troposphere AT ALL LEVELS. So, which is it, you did or did not mean the whole Earth’s troposphere at all levels?

January and February running far above the 20 year average in tropospheric temps at all levels, with much of the time spent above the 20 year record highs for tropospheric temps.

I suppose you are correct in observing that “The troposphereic temperature data is exeptional useful and important” when you are trying to convince readers that “it is diplaying exactly what we’d expect” in anything, contrary to the real world abhorrence for any perfection in human miscalculations. Of course, when you assert every positive and negative event is proof of Global Warming and Climate Change caused by mankind, it makes it kind of easy to claim “it is diplaying exactly what we’d expect” in anything.

I think R. Gates makes an interesting point about AGW models.
It is his contention that the models are correct, so following this logic the record warm Troposphere temperatures in Jan, Feb and March actually corresponds with a very cold Northern Hemisphere on the ground.
So if the Troposphere temperatures are “as expected” by the AGW models then following his logic, all in the NH must prepare for very cold weather in the future.
Is this what the AGW models predict? certainly sounds catastrophic!

Dear Sirs,
I might be worth noting that according to Peter Huybers (presently Harvard Earth Sciences, I think) Ph.D. Thesis under Carl Wunsch, a lead-lag study of 018 (isotopic temp. proxy) values in ice cores from both poles show a syncopation of 018 signals at CENTURY-level time-scales through the later Pleistocene, based upon Greenland and Antarctic data (Peter Huybers models a 210 y Antarctic lead in this, the thesis is well-written, readable, and available on-line). The point is that under NATURAL conditions, differences between arctic and antarctic temps. are perhaps usual rather than unusual (perhaps because of mechanics of Global, and esp. N. Atlantic deep-water formation and other oceanographic factors?). The present pole/anti-pole situation would appear to conform with expactations of non-anthropogenic climate change mechanisms. Much empirical work still needs to be completed by the British Antartic survey, but my gut feeling is that natural agencies will be seen to be primary factors, once climate science returns to reason. This site does a good job on that score.
Bruce M. Albert, Ph.D., PDRA, Durham University, UK

wes george (21:38:17) wrote:
What does one call a hypothesis that fails to yield useful predictions of observed data?
*********************************************
Well, I think a “Climate Change Scientist” (h/t to rob @ 03:28:33) would call it “Results!”

How good are these satellite measurements of Antarctic ice gravity loss? We’ve been in situations before where errors were found in satellite measurements. GRACE has only been going for 8 years, so how do they even know if they are in any way accurate?

I look at the 25 year UAH anomaly map and I see 3 ‘hot’ areas in the Arctic.
Each is fairly close to the three biggest sources of industrialisation in the the last 25 years: US/Canada, Europe, Japan/S Korea. One big feature of this period is the rise of transportation and in particular (sic) the use of diesel.
Methinks a few 10 micron particulates surveys might be in order. On the other hand there ain’t much black soot in Antarctica.

SandyInDerby (11:44:09) :
Leif Svalgaard (09:49:19)
“Not wishing to divert a private discussion, but what about unknown unknowns?”
Not private at all, very public ..
Whatever any calculations may show, and there are number of unknowns, one fact is well known: the GMF Z component today at the centre of the Beaufort gyre is about 17% less today (57.1 micro Tesla) than it was around 1650 (at deepest LIA, 68.5 micro Tesla), hence any possible effect would change accordingly.

Hey, thanks for the link to UAH satellite datafrom the linked story, “NASA Still Spreading Antarctic Worries”. I hadn’t realized the North Pole ocean warming trend was 0.50 deg C/decade – that’s worse than I thought.
I wish UAH and RSS would resolve their differences in data processing – they use the same NOAA polar orbiting satellite data, but come to different temperatures. RSS also makes clear that the satellite coverage is only to 82.5 deg latitude, south and north – UAH just calls the data South Pole and North Pole.http://www.remss.com/data/msu/monthly_time_series/RSS_Monthly_MSU_AMSU_Channel_TTS_Anomalies_Land_v03_2.txt
Too bad the satellites can’t overlap some of the temperature stations at the South Pole below 82.5 deg latitude (and corresponding latitudes in the north)http://blackmaps.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/antarctica-map.jpg
And both UAH and RSS use the same baseline period of 1979-2000 for their temperature anomalies – then why does RSS, for the month of Feb 2010, get a temperature anomaly of 0.151 for Land, -82.5 to -60 deg latitude, and UAH gets 1.05 deg C for the “South Pole land” ?
And for the North Pole ( 60 to 82.5 deg latitude), RSS gets 3.481 deg C anomaly, and UAH gets 1.91 deg C land temp. anomaly ?
I think the problem is not NASA’s, but one of the groups analyzing the satellite data. Hasn’t UAH been fixing a lot of errors recently ?http://nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/readme.05Mar2010

Another absolute butchering of scientific data.
First off, Steven, you’re comparing NSIDC sea ice “extent” to NASAs “mass”. Two different metrics, obtained by different scientists, using different methods.
Second, NSIDC merely mentions a study that proposed an ozone hole-related cooling process. Conveniently, you ignore the entire FAQ section in which NSIDC clearly explains the scientific consensus (inclusive of NSIDC) on Antarctic sea ice, warming, cooling, etc. Here’s a particularly illuminating line:
“In terms of sea ice, climate model projections of Antarctic sea ice extent are in reasonable agreement with the observations to date. It also appears that atmospheric greenhouse gases, as well as the loss of ozone, have acted to increase the winds around Antarctica. Perhaps counter intuitively, this has further protected the Antarctic from warming and has fostered more ice growth.”http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/faq.html#wintertimeantarctic

D. Patterson said:
“(R. Gates)…makes the hugely over-simplistic and erroneous conclusion and impression these satellite observations constitute evidence of the whole Earth radiating at warmer levels.”
Nope, never said the “whole earth” once, and would never say the whole earth is radiating at warmer levels, as that would be a nonsensical and erroneous statement. The troposphereic temperature data is exeptional useful and important, and my whole point in even mentioning it is because it is diplaying exactly what we’d expect in January, February, and now into March 2010, if, as the Met Office has stated, and I also believe, there is a good chance that 2010 will be the warmest on instrument record. A warm troposphere is exactly what AGW models predict, as that is where the “action is” so to speak in terms of GH forcing…i.e. that’s where the GH gases do their business. LIkewise, in the same satellite data we see the Stratosphere is cooling, and that is exactly what AGW models predict. If the troposphereic temps were falling, or the stratospheric temps rising, it would not be a good sign for the AGW hypothesis.

There is an alternative explanation: That the energy to heat up the troposphere is coming from the oceans …

“In terms of sea ice, climate model projections of Antarctic sea ice extent are in reasonable agreement with the observations to date. It also appears that atmospheric greenhouse gases, as well as the loss of ozone, have acted to increase the winds around Antarctica. Perhaps counter intuitively, this has further protected the Antarctic from warming and has fostered more ice growth.”
So it is not melting, they know it is not melting, and even if was melting it would take most of forever to do it.
So why do they keep coming out with all those estimates of how much
water would be over everything if did melt and inundate us all ? Isn’
the whole thing rather disingenuous ?
The next time some numbskull starts railing at me about how Pittsburgh and Denver will be coastal cities by August I will spit on their shoe, and say
“Are you drowning yet ?” or “I refute it thus”.

vukcevic (13:27:40) :Z component today at the centre of the Beaufort gyre is about 17% less today (57.1 micro Tesla) than it was around 1650 (at deepest LIA, 68.5 micro Tesla), hence any possible effect would change accordingly.
So, any [negligible] effect today would be even less than in 1650. Do yourself a favor then, and study the material I have provided. Here is another study of this: http://www.leif.org/EOS/JC076i015p03476.pdf

Wren
If you won’t answer the simple question… than lay off. We know you want to take one possible piece of data from one source and pretend it has some huge meaning above all other observations. We get that, enough already.
The supposed loss of continental ice is a rediculously small trend and is NOT enough to validate the models or show any warming at all it is less that would be expected during an interglacial and so small it is doubtful that it exists at all.

EdP (12:38:16) :I don’t get is that just about 100% of your posts end up with either a condescending or derisive comment.
I hope my comments are illuminating the errors and fallacies committed and sometimes even providing positive and factual information. I only comment [or try to, at least] on things that I know something about and there is a lot of nonsense dished out on this [and other blogs], and I call that as I see it. That you see many negative comments from me is perhaps a [sad] measure of the degree of nonsensical speculation that comes this way. Vuk’s latest [which he peddles regularly] is a sterling example.

Ryan Stephenson (02:56:07) : Sea ice is floating on warm water, the base of the ice being in thermal equilibrium with the sea water. If that water gets just a little bit warmer, you’re going to get a lot more melting, with the floating ice turning into more water.
Warm water? Remind me to never ask you to draw a bath.

note:Phil and De Witt Payne are two that just cannot wait to see sea ice melt. LOL I would say 100% belief in AGW. Everytime the graph goes down they suddenly appear here or at CA ice thread. I of course appear when it goes up! A bit of a farce indeed! I am a very proud D#####r LOL.

My argument, Steve, is with you intentionally and repeatedly miscasting the data. I’ve pointed out your errors and missteps numerous times. All this talk about cherry picking – here’s a good line from NSIDC, which you inadvertently overlooked, I suppose:
“Wintertime Antarctic sea ice is increasing at a small rate and with substantial natural year-to-year variability in the time series. While Antarctic sea ice reached a near-record-high annual minimum in March 2008, this does not indicate a significant long-term trend.”
That’s quite an important point you left out there, son. Maybe it’s you that should be doing homework, if you’re not too busy counting pixels somewhere.

Leif Svalgaard (13:56:23) : “So, any [negligible] effect today would be even less than in 1650.”
You got that wrong way around (effect in 1650 would be, if linear 17% greater than today
“Do yourself a favor then, and study the material I have provided. Here is another study of this: http://www.leif.org/EOS/JC076i015p03476.pdf”
Thanks for the link: maths is mind boggling, and as Tesla said tendency of scientists to substitute maths for science. However I noticed following:
“The present analysis shows that the induced electric field can be a complicated function of the velocity field. The electric field responds to both the local and large-scale character of the flow. Presently it is easier to make electric, as opposed to magnetic, field measurements for long periods.”
In mean time let’s put some simple facts together:
– GMF Z component has a dip in the exact area of the strongest polar (Beaufort) gyrehttp://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC15.htm
I suggest this is due to counter MF created by electric currents generated by gyre’s circulation in the strong Earth’s MF of the area.
– There is a proven correlation between the ocean transport index and GMF variation (be GMF small or large).http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC5.htm
– one fact is well known: the GMF Z component at the centre of the Beaufort gyre is about 17% less today (57.1 micro Tesla) than it was around 1650 (at deepest LIA, 68.5 micro Tesla), hence any possible effect on slowing down gyre’s circulation would change accordingly.
– Beaufort gyre regulates flow of the transpolar curent into Labrador Sea.http://www.whoi.edu/cms/images/dfino/2007/2/ArcticCurrents-labels_41043.jpg
The warm water current branching of the North Atlantic Current and combination of the transpolar current create Labrador Sea current; this tightly governs the strength of the Subpolar gyre’s circulation, which is the engine of the heat transport across the North Atlantic Ocean.
Result: Strong correlation between GMF of polar regions and North Atlantic temperature anomaly.http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC8.htm
I wish you good night.

Richard Sharpe (13:46:23)
“There is an alternative explanation: That the energy to heat up the troposphere is coming from the oceans.”
Absolutely right but only for so long as the current El Nino lasts.
And also only while the sun’s surface remains quiescent. From 1975 to 2000 the run of strong El Ninos was largely offset by the active sun which allowed a faster venting of the oceanic energy to space. Now with a quiet sun and an El Nino the excess energy from the oceans is restrained from being vented fast enough and some of that energy is being redirected downward in the Arctic and Antarctic Oscillations to give cold mid latitudes and heavy snowfalls.
Leif Svalgaard ( 14:09:312)
Leif, as you should know I regard you as the master in all matters solar. However I think you are as adrift as anyone else when it comes to recognising the variety of interactions in the Earth’s processing of that solar energy.
Correct me if I’m wrong but I think you see the Earth system as a black body radiating out to space at the appropriate rate for a body at some so called global temperature.
I don’t think you have a grip on the internal variability of the Earth system which is composed of numerous layers in both oceans and air all of which introduce their own variations in the rate of energy flow back out of the system once it has been received from the sun.
It’s not just a matter of radiative physics straight in and straight out. There are the matters of convection and conduction and the irregular block transfers of energy upwards and downwards by the phase changes of water and the albedo variability introduced by changes in cloudiness and snow/ice cover.
As you must accept, the thermosphere can warm or cool whilst other layers change in the opposite direction. The stratosphere seems to warm and cool opposite to the troposphere and the oceanic energy content increases as the troposphere cools and vice versa.
All those phenomena can only be explained by varying rates of energy transfer between layers.
Bob Tisdale is right with his concept of discharge and recharge between sun sea and air but I would extend that globally and over centuries and possibly millennia.
Willis’s thermostat hypothesis is right but I would also extend that globally and over centuries and millennia.
Some of the ideas from tallbloke, Erl Happ and Svensmark are on the right lines as regards the energy flow effects of chemical changes in the atmosphere but personally I think that is a second order effect compared to oceanic variability.
I wouldn’t even entirely exclude the ideas of vukcevic and those who support length of day and gravitational effects because they could influence the oceanic variability that the observational evidence strongly supports.
It really doesn’t seem right for you to be so dismissive of thoughts and ideas that relate to internal Earth system variability on the basis of your undoubted solar expertise.
I think that is why we have not been able to have a full meeting of minds.

Richard Sharpe said:
“There is an alternative explanation: That the energy to heat up the troposphere is coming from the oceans …”
Indeed, and much of it likely is, especially in an El Nino year, and that’s why you look at long term trends, for there is only so much energy to be released during any given El Nino period, but over time, you’d expect the average global temperatures from one El Nino period to the next (according to AGW Models) to increase, and that’s one reason that the Met office and others are projecting 2010 to be the warmest year on instrument record, we have an El Nino going on, plus we have a greater CO2 concentration than 1998, the last big El Nino year– though that year was a stronger El Nino. 1998 was also at a different point at the beginning of solar cycle 23, with a more active sun, and though this effect is marginal, it gave 1998 even more warming potential.

Phil M,
You are again arguing a straw man. This article is about the March 3 Sea Ice News, which says the paragraph below. If they have inconsistent statements somewhere else on their web site, what does that have to do with this article? I quoted exactly what they said, in it’s entirety.
“Sea ice extent in the Antarctic has been unusually high in recent years, both in summer and winter. Overall, the Antarctic is showing small positive trends in total extent. For example, the trend in February extent is now +3.1% per decade. However, the Amundsen and Bellingshausen Seas show a strong negative trend in extent. These overall positive trends may seem counterintuitive in light of what is happening in the Arctic. Our Frequently Asked Questions section briefly explains the general differences between the two polar environments. A recent report (Turner, et. al., 2009) suggests that the ozone hole has resulted in changes in atmospheric circulation leading to cooling and increasing sea ice extents over much of the Antarctic region.”

vukcevic (15:00:23) :Leif Svalgaard (13:56:23) : “So, any [negligible] effect today would be even less than in 1650.”
You got that wrong way around (effect in 1650 would be, if linear 17% greater than today
Typical of your logic that you think that 17% less today is different
from 17% greater in 1650Thanks for the link: maths is mind boggling, and as Tesla said tendency of scientists to substitute maths for science.
Nonsense, science today is mathematical, and the math is elementary.I suggest this is due to counter MF created by electric currents generated by gyre’s circulation in the strong Earth’s MF of the area.
And I tell you that calculations show that the effect is minuscule.There is a proven correlation
A proven correlation is one that is backed up by matching calculation of the effect, and this is not the case.
Stephen Wilde (15:09:18) :However I think you are as adrift as anyone else when it comes to recognising the variety of interactions in the Earth’s processing of that solar energy.
Solar work involves being an expert in radiative effects.Correct me if I’m wrong but I think you see the Earth system as a black body radiating out to space at the appropriate rate for a body at some so called global temperature.
What nonsense is that? Black body or grey body makes no difference. And it is well-known that because of the greenhouse effect, the Earth’s surface temperature is several tens of degrees higher than the black body temperature. What is a fact, is that the radiated energy from the Earth equals that coming in from the Sun.It’s not just a matter of radiative physics straight in and straight out. There are the matters of convection and conduction and the irregular block transfers of energy upwards and downwards by the phase changes of water and the albedo variability introduced by changes in cloudiness and snow/ice cover.
I spent the first five years at the University in Copenhagen studying Geophysics and Atmospheric physics and worked four years at the the Danish Meteorological Institute, so I do know something about all that. [This is my real field – the solar bit came later]As you must accept, the thermosphere can warm or cool whilst other layers change in the opposite direction.
The thermosphere is so thin and the total energy up there so minuscule that it is totally irrelevant what happens there [as we have discussed so many times].I wouldn’t even entirely exclude the ideas of vukcevic
That is because you [and he] do not understand the physicsand those who support length of day and gravitational effects because they could influence the oceanic variability that the observational evidence strongly supports.
the cause and effect go the other way [ice skater lowering and raising her arms].It really doesn’t seem right for you to be so dismissive of thoughts and ideas that relate to internal Earth system variability on the basis of your undoubted solar expertise.
My solar expertise is a sideshow as i have explained.I think that is why we have not been able to have a full meeting of minds.
If you cannot understand the facts, then meeting of minds is hard.

Leif @ 15:48:59
“What is a fact is the radiated energy from the earth equals that coming in from the sun”. Well, minus the energy sequestered underground in hydrocarbons and carbonates, plus the energy conducted from the interior of the earth. I know, picky, picky.
==========

Steve Goddard (22:06:34) :
This article is about sea ice, but it should be apparent that it would be impossible for a region of sea ice to be growing and nearby continental ice to be melting.
—————-The latest data reveal that Antarctica is losing ice at an accelerating rate, too. How is it possible for surface melting to decrease, but for the continent to lose mass anyway? The answer boils down to the fact that ice can flow without melting.http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/view.php?id=42399
What do they call an Antarctic glacier once it flows into the ocean ?
Sea ice ?The oceans surrounding Antarctica have been warming, so Schodlok doesn’t doubt that the ice shelves are being undermined by warmer water being brought up from the depths. But he admits that it hasn’t been proven rigorously, because satellites can’t measure underneath the ice.
Wouldn’t melting ice shelves, flowing continental glaciers, increased sea ice, and Antarctica losing ice at an increasing rate (GRACE satellite data), with surface temperatures seen by satellite being basically constant (with a small noise signal superimposed) all be consistent ?
Could 100 cubic kilometers of ice flowing off of Antarctica into the surrounding oceans every year be consistent with less sea ice ?

I know it’s not THIS simple, but could somebody help me wrap me head around this.
Disconnect the atmosphere from the Antarctic ice cap for a minute.
The atmosphere is 5 x 10^21 grams of air, with specific heat of around 1 Joule per gram degree K, and a projected temperature rise over some time of 5 degrees Kelvin, so the total energy in question is about 3 x 10^22 Joule.
The ice cap is 15 x 10^6 square kilometers in area, 2 km in depth, with a specific density of 1. We’re looking at 3 x 10^21 grams of ice. The specific heat of solid ice, below freezing is about 2 Joule /gK, and the ice at the pole is about – 50 degree K below freezing. The heat of fusion of ice is about 333 J / gram. Adding the heat necessary to raise the ice to “merely” zero, and adding the heat of fusion, we need about 1.3 x 10^24 Joules to melt the icecap.
That is, all the heat in all the world, by air temperature, is about 2 percent what it takes to raise sea level by whatever Al Gore is telling us.
This is a pretty big difference.
Why does the atmosphere heat up, at all? Why don’t we see long centuries where the heat all goes toward raising the temperature of that giant icecap from fifty below freezing to a toast warm ten below freezing?

Anu,
Ice flowing outward into the ocean is a sign of an expanding glacier. A retreating glacier moves away from the ocean. Icebergs form when an expanding glacier breaks off a chunk into the ocean.
The GRACE data is probably meaningless wrt to ice mass. The small changes they are seeing are likely due to isostasy or plate tectonics. The only bedrock reference points they have are around the margins – i.e. they have no reference points across most of the continents. It is in fact remarkable that they would make claims of ice mass to such fine precision without an adequate set of control data.

It would help clarity if all these articles by NSIDC (which is suppported/funded by NOAA, NASA, NSF), would include a simple matrix (excel format)summarizing findings. In a 5 sec look you could get the essense, instead of slogging through weasely summary verbiage. Verbiage in scientific communications is not the optimum way to show info.
Clarity in science maybe should be second only to integrity?
John

kim (16:08:32) :I know, picky, picky.
And you can be more picky, and include friction caused by lunar tides, energy released in nuclear power plants. hot air blowing from Al Gore’s mouth, etc. A hallmark of a scientist is to concentrate on what is relevant.I wonder if the earth varies its rate of sequestration of that energy in response to some rhythm of the sun.
It does depend on the erosion rate which in turn depends on the luminosity of the Sun. As the Sun heats up over the next several billion years, erosion will increase and sequestration will remove almost all CO2 from the atmosphere leading to extinction of plant life [and thus all higher life]. The first 4 billion years only microbes could live on Earth, and in 0.5 billion years time, again only microbes can live on Earth. Higher life is only possible during that window of 1 billion years in which we are halfway through.
POUNCER (16:21:50) :Why does the atmosphere heat up, at all? Why don’t we see long centuries where the heat all goes toward raising the temperature of that giant icecap from fifty below freezing to a toast warm ten below freezing
Because that icecap reflects most of sunlight [96% in visible and 68% in infrared] falling on it which isn’t much anyway because of low angle of incidence.

kim (16:08:32) :I know, picky, picky.
And you can be more picky, and include friction caused by lunar tides, energy released in nuclear power plants, hot air blowing from Al Gore’s mouth, etc. A hallmark of a scientist is to concentrate on what is relevant.I wonder if the earth varies its rate of sequestration of that energy in response to some rhythm of the sun.
It does depend on the erosion rate which in turn depends on the luminosity of the Sun. As the Sun heats up over the next several billion years, erosion will increase and sequestration will remove almost all CO2 from the atmosphere leading to extinction of plant life [and thus all higher life]. The first 4 billion years only microbes could live on Earth, and in 0.5 billion years time, again only microbes can live on Earth. Higher life is only possible during that window of 1 billion years in which we are halfway through.
POUNCER (16:21:50) :Why does the atmosphere heat up, at all? Why don’t we see long centuries where the heat all goes toward raising the temperature of that giant icecap from fifty below freezing to a toast warm ten below freezing
Because that icecap reflects most of sunlight [96% in visible and 68% in infrared] falling on it which isn’t much anyway because of low angle of incidence.

R. Gates (10:37:07),
The canard that global ice extent is falling has been repeatedly debunked. Here is another chart from the same source: click. If you can’t see that global ice extent is what matters when discussing global warming – well, everyone else can.
From the IPCC’s AR-4, Sea Ice Extent, Southern Hemisphere: click. As everyone else can see, this chart shows a rising trend in Southern Hemisphere ice extent: click
From NSIDC – referenced in this very article – Southern Hemisphere ice anomalies [+3.1% per decade increase in ice extent over the last thirty years] : click. As we know, charts are often altered, as this sea ice extent blink gif shows: click
To repeat: global ice cover is what matters when discussing global warming. And global ice cover is not declining: click. That’s a NASA anomaly chart, which debunks the claim that the planet is losing ice. Cognitive dissonance won’t allow you to accept that obvious fact. But everyone else can see it.

Leif Svalgaard (13:56:23) : “So, any [negligible] effect today would be even less than in 1650.”
vukcevic (15:00:23) :
You got that wrong way around (effect in 1650 would be, if linear 17% greater than today
Leif Svalgaard (15:48:59) : Typical of your logic that you think that 17% less today is different from 17% greater in 1650
Sorry, gentlemen, but I think you’re both wrong. Leif, there is a difference between the two, but vukcevik still stated it wrong.
Assuming a linear response, and values of 68.5 in 1650 versus 57.1 today, we could say that the effect today is about 17% less than it was in 1650 (actually about 16.64% less), but that is not at all the same thing as saying that the effect in 1650 was 17% greater than today’s effect. To be accurate, you would have to say that the effect in 1650 was 19.96% greater than today.
To get only “17% greater than today” back in 1650, the value would have to have been about 66.81 instead.
It’s as maddening for me to see things like this as it is for people to talk about the price of something being “reduced 150%”. Just once I’d like to get someone to live up to that advertisement, and actually pay me 50% of what the previous sales price was for the favor of taking something off their hands.

” I can’t believe I’m among the first to comment!
Cooling Antarctica? Warming Arctic? So what? Perhaps we should just take the “Global” out of “Climate Change” and “Warming”, then we could all agree that climate does change, and warming can occur, but at different times and rates in different places. Climate is regional.
A good slogan might be- Climate Change- not new, not much, and not scary!”
Well-said!
This is, if I do not misread him, one of the themes of Roger Pielke, Sr. , who, along with Bill Gray, should be considered by President Romney for a Presidential medal, in honor of their fearless and lonely fight for the integrity of climate science.
Who says I’m always living in the past?
We are constantly exhorted not to take ‘weather’ for ‘cimate.’ But weather is what actually happens in a given place and a given time; it is the primary, phenomenal reality, and is what affects human life. Climate is a secondary, statistically abstracted reality.
Globally, January 2010 was the warmest in the 30-year satellite record. Yet the most populated and prosperous regions of the Northern Hemisphere from China through Western Europe, where at least one-third of the human population of the planet live, had the bitterest winter, all things considered, in thirty years. It was weather that disrupted daily human life in these areas, not the artefact (however useful) of a ‘global’ heat wave.
Weather is Hurricane Katrina, or an F-4 tornado flattening a town, or a lovely late April afternoon with the lilacs in bloom. Why should we have only to account for destructive events?
An increase or decrease in the number and /or intensity of landfalling hurricanes or of tornados, or of the frequency of rare days in June would be climate.
It seems to me that one general truth in play in all this AGW brouhaha is that atmospheric scientists should, at this stage of knowledge at least, beware of Grand Narratives. Isaac Newton apparently had an ego as broad as the heavens, but toward the end of his life, he said something to the effect that he felt like a child throwing pebbles into the limitless ocean and watching the ripples.
What a man! Mathematician, physicist, crackpot, alchemist, crackpot Biblical hermeneutician, proto-Whig and political actor in the crisis of 1688, director of the mint–and he felt but a child!

Barry Kearns (17:10:28) :It’s as maddening for me etc
You are, of course, correct, but when the change is small enough [e.g. less than 20%] it does not make any difference to the argument as Nature is messy enough for this not to matter within the uncertainty of the physics. Now, when it comes to money, that is a different matter 🙂

http://vortex.plymouth.edu/mollsat_ir_an.gif
Try this IR view of the globe I look at frequently, it is continually updated with the last 36 hours in 3 hour steps. But look at the storms skirting Antarctica and how most go right over the peninsula. No wonder it is much warmer.
Look at this every few days for a month or so and you may end with a different view of storms and clouds on a planet scale. The storms circulating Antarctica were basically constant over the last 4 months though about 5 degrees closer to the equator. Except for the horizontal daily stepping of the storms, every day looks basically the same as the day before, at least it has for the last four months.

wayne (17:22:34)But look at the storms skirting Antarctica and how most go right over the peninsula. No wonder it is much warmer.
I think it is an artifact of the processing or imaging that the polar regions have no clouds.

western antarctica gaining ice as well
A doubling in snow accumulation in the western Antarctic Peninsula since 1850http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2008/2007GL032529.shtml
“The Gomez record reveals a doubling of accumulation since the 1850s, from a decadal average of 0.49 mweq y−1 in 1855–1864 to 1.10 mweq y−1 in 1997–2006, with acceleration in recent decades.”

Steve Goddard (16:28:56) :
Anu,
Ice flowing outward into the ocean is a sign of an expanding glacier. A retreating glacier moves away from the ocean. Icebergs form when an expanding glacier breaks off a chunk into the ocean.
———-
It seems that glaciers speed up and thin out on the way to dumping their ice into the ocean, after the ice shelf damming them breaks.
They’ve seen this with the dramatic Larsen B ice shelf breakup in 2002:http://nsidc.org/news/press/20040921_acceleration.htmlIn the wake of the Larsen B Ice Shelf disintegration in 2002, glaciers in the Antarctic Peninsula have both accelerated and thinned en route to the Weddell Sea. The findings indicate that ice shelf breakup may rapidly lead to sea level rise.http://nasadaacs.eos.nasa.gov/articles/2007/2007_larsen.html“In both Greenland and Antarctica we’re seeing over and over again that when an ice shelf disintegrates, glaciers behind it accelerate abruptly, and begin to draw down significant volumes of ice and put it into the ocean.” The Larsen B shelf was about the size of Connecticut, but Antarctica’s largest ice shelves, the Ross and Ronne, are each nearly the size of Spain. If the Ross shelf collapsed, for example, the resulting flow of glacial ice could eventually raise global sea level by up to five meters (sixteen feet).Accelerating glacier ice is an unwelcome ingredient in the recipe for global sea-level rise, making it important for scientists to understand the factors behind ice shelf breakup. As long as the massive Antarctic ice sheets remain locked away behind ice shelves, doled out in an occasional iceberg, sea level may remain stable. But if warming and melting trends persist, more ice shelves may begin to show the same signs of weakness observed in the Larsen B ice shelf before it disintegrated. “This problem of sea-level rise is a real one,” says Scambos. “It’s likely to happen, and the steps could proceed more rapidly than we thought.”

mamapajamas (13:01:17) :
@Wren (23:06:35) :
“NASA says
“The answer boils down to the fact that ice can flow without melting.” ”
Wren, you’re faith in what “NASA says” is astounding. At this point in time, if NASA said the sky was blue, I’d go out side and look.
=================
I have known for a long time ice can flow without melting, but I didn’t learn that from NASA.
I’m not an anti-government idelogue

Leif Svalgaard (17:35:19) :
I see what you mean. Of course that is a very course view and seems to ignore all but the strongest signals. Poles might not even be covered at all. I simply use it as an instant overview every day or two to see what might be heading my way.

POUNCER, Gail Combs, DocWat, MJ Penny, Alan the Brit,
You are all on the right track. Before I read the comments I did the math on my own take:
The (Not So) Melting Antarctic
The Current Antarctic “Melting”:
Surface area of the Earth (sq miles)
196,861,796.38
Ocean surface area of the Earth @ ~ 70% (sq miles)
137,803,257.47
Antarctic Ice Melt / Year (cu miles)
24.00
Ocean rise / yr from Antarctic Ice Melt (ft)
0.000920
Ocean rise / yr from Antarctic Ice Melt (inches)
0.011035
Ocean rise / yr from Antarctic Ice Melt (mm)
0.275872
Number of years to raise ocean level by 1 inch
90.62
Number of years to raise ocean level by 1 foot
1,087.46
Number of years to raise ocean level by 1 meter
3,624.88
What It Would Take To Achieve Actual Antarctic Melting?
Average Annual Temperature of the Antarctic (degF)
-58
Freezing Point (degF)
32
Degrees of warming required to move Antarctic Average Annual Temp above Freezing (degF)
90
Likelihood of Antarctic Average Temp rising to allow meaningful Antarctic melting before the Holocene ends (pct)
What are the summertime average high temperatures in Iraq? (degF)
110
Assuming distributed global temperature rise, what would be the summertime average high temperatures in Iraq have to be if the Antarctic shifted into actual average melting? (degF)
200
Inevitable resultant editorial comment: Who on earth is dumb enough to believe any of this innumerate warming drivel?
And all the usual disclaimers about the Antarctic being a bowl full of ice and so not going anywhere no matter what until plate tectonics do their damage, we don’t know the role of undersea volcanoes in the area, etc., etc.

Love this re the Antarctic: “These overall positive trends may seem counterintuitive in light of what is happening in the Arctic.”
Why not for the Arctic: “These overall negative trends may seem counterintuitive in light of what is happening in the Antarctic”

I really think Anthony needs to stop publishing stuff by Goddard. There are, once again, a lot of fairly reasonable points being made by AGW alarmists about this latest piece, and his stuff is generally ridiculed not long after it’s posted.
I don’t buy AGW, but when I read critiques of Goddard I usually find they’re right.
Posting failed attempts at disproving AGW, and inviting mockery, doesn’t help our cause. I’m sure Anthony and others have read various sites that pick apart Goddard’s poor work. So why are they printed here among other much more legitimate points? Are we just trying to make noise or are we trying to raise strong, believable arguments? I don’t like seeing the good work Anthony is doing diluted by stuff like this.

Barry Kearns (17:10:28) :
“Leif Svalgaard (13:56:23) : “So, any [negligible] effect today would be even less than in 1650.”
vukcevic (15:00:23) :
“You got that wrong way around (effect in 1650 would be, if linear 17% greater than today”
Assuming a linear response, and values of 68.5 in 1650 versus 57.1 today, we could say that the effect today is about 17% less than it was in 1650 (actually about 16.64% less)”
I agree with you. It was a bit late, rounded it off to17% , and somewhat carelessly followed Dr. S. comment, but here is my original statement:
vukcevic (13:27:40) :
Whatever any calculations may show, and there are number of unknowns, one fact is well known: the GMF Z component today at the centre of the Beaufort gyre is about 17% less today (57.1 micro Tesla) than it was around 1650 (at deepest LIA, 68.5 micro Tesla), hence any possible effect would change accordingly.

vukcevic (23:42:24) :
Whatever any calculations may show, and there are number of unknowns, one fact is well known: the GMF Z component today at the centre of the Beaufort gyre is about 17% less today (57.1 micro Tesla) than it was around 1650 (at deepest LIA, 68.5 micro Tesla), hence any possible effect would change accordingly.
How is it that we know these measures? The center of the BG seems to be fairly mobile. Determining it in the present would seem to be a bit of a challenge, determining it 360 years in the past would seem highly unlikely.

R. Gates (09:23:41) :“Gail said:
“In other words when Dr. Roy Spencer showed high satellite temperature records in January 2010 it is actually show the earth is COOLING down…”
??? Now that is an interesting twist. Higher temps=cooling. I can see why so many people are confused…”these are not the droids you’re looking for” or “this is not the higher temps you think they are”. Very funny!”
REPLY:
That was taken out of context. Read the WHOLE exchange. Oh wait you are a AGW type so taking it out of context to make fun of someone is the politically correct move. Excuse me for thinking you might be interested in the science.

JimAsh (13:55:02) :“….The next time some numbskull starts railing at me about how Pittsburgh and Denver will be coastal cities by August I will spit on their shoe, and say
“Are you drowning yet ?” or “I refute it thus”.”
Do not forget this article in the Geological Society publication http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/gsl/site/GSL/lang/en/page7209.html“…It is also worth noting the geometry and age of the great icecaps. The Greenland, East Antarctica and West Antarctica ice sheets occupy kilometre-deep basins, and the ice cannot possibly slide downhill – it has to flow uphill. In simple numbers the Greenland icecap has existed for three million years and the Antarctic Ice sheets 30 million….”
So what you would have if the glaciers melted are inland seas not the oceans rising to algorest heights. Think of the finger lakes in New York that are artifacts of the last glaciation.

R. Gates (12:18:14) : The troposphereic temperature data is exeptional useful and important, and my whole point in even mentioning it is because it is diplaying exactly what we’d expect in January, February, and now into March 2010, if, as the Met Office has stated, and I also believe, there is a good chance that 2010 will be the warmest on instrument record. A warm troposphere is exactly what AGW models predict, ..
Yes but R gates – correct me if I am wrong the AGW models didnt just predict the tropospheric hotspot in Jan and Feb 2010. Staistically I suppose sometime it was bound to happen and you leap in and say – aha – AGW, while in the meantime the Artic ice is normal and there are blizzards on the mediterranean coast.

Leif Svalgaard (15:48:59) :
“Nonsense, science today is mathematical, and the math is elementary….
That is because you [and he (vukcevic)] do not understand the physics….
I spent the first five years at the University in Copenhagen studying Geophysics and Atmospheric physics and worked four years at the Danish Meteorological Institute, so I do know something about all that. [This is my real field – the solar bit came later]”
I have looked at the paper again.http://www.leif.org/EOS/JC076i015p03476.pdf
15 pages of maths to justify “This research was supported by the Office of
Naval Research contract N00014-66-C0241.”
But the conclusion is the most revealing :”The present results suggest that considerable new information about ocean currents can be obtained from electric and magnetic measurements.”
No actual data, just mathematical modelling, and we have come across these before,
Well, I have great respect for University of Copenhagen, since my daughter spent a postgraduate year there studding the European Union law.
Elsewhere, commenting on my pointing out at high correlation in the trends of the North Atlantic temperature anomaly (NATA) you said:
“My point was precisely that without specifying the location, your graph has no value.”
It appears that the University in Copenhagen, Geophysics and Atmospheric physics dept. and at the Danish Meteorological Institute, in view of the fact that Denmark owes a great chunk of land within the Arctic circle, have failed to familiar their students with the fact that there is a reversed proportionality between the GMF in the Arctic and the North Atlantic temperature anomaly.
This diagram may be of some help.http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC16.htm
Diagram shows the GMF along the transpolar current route, main factor controling the North Atlantic temperature anomaly.
See also: http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GandF.htm

Anu (19:17:23) :“…It seems that glaciers speed up and thin out on the way to dumping their ice into the ocean, after the ice shelf damming them breaks.
They’ve seen this with the dramatic Larsen B ice shelf breakup in 2002:http://nsidc.org/news/press/20040921_acceleration.html
In the wake of the Larsen B Ice Shelf disintegration in 2002, glaciers in the Antarctic Peninsula have both accelerated and thinned en route to the Weddell Sea. The findings indicate that ice shelf breakup may rapidly lead to sea level rise…..The Larsen B shelf was about the size of Connecticut…”
You quote a lot of alarmist “rapidly sea level rise” information. I have a couple of problems with it. Given the size of the Larsen B shelf there should have been a measurable effect in increase of sea ice and sea level rise to prove the theory correct.
First the Larsen B Ice Shelf disintegration took place in 2002. A look at the global sea ice variation shows no real impact. http://noconsensus.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/global-sea-ice-area-variation-nasateam-algorithm.jpg
A look at the sea level rise at Funafuti, Tuvalu and other points around the world shows no impact. http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/SeaLevelRising.htm
I notice the articles talk about “accelerated and thinned” they do not talk about the total volume of ice going into the sea per unit time. Perhaps this is why there has been no impact. The glaciers are moving faster but due to thinning the amount of ice dumped into the sea remains about the same.

Ref – EdP (12:38:16) :
Leif Svalgaard
“…I think it’s time for you to lighten up.”
___________________________
EdP- Leif is like a smoke detector or geigercounter. He let’s us know when things might not be as they seem.
PS: TMDE (Test Measurement Diagnostic Equipment) are sensitive, do not throw, drop, beat, scratch, or expose to too much BS -lest they explode:-)

I suggest that all climate alarmists are REQUIRED to read Cliff Ollier’s article in the March issue of Geoscientist (linked by Gail Combs above).
Once again, it gives us ‘we know we’re right but not quite sure why’ sceptics an easily understood explanation as to why the ’60m rise in sea level’ predictions are so much cobblers.
Incidentally – re the Arctic sea ice – about now the extent should be decreasing – but it will be interesting to watch the JAXA chart to see whether this horrible Northern Hemisphere winter has any effect on the rate..!

vukcevic (04:29:13) :the fact that there is a reversed proportionality between the GMF in the Arctic and the North Atlantic temperature anomaly.
This is not a fact of causation, but just a coincidence, and I have repeatedly pointed out that your proposed explanation doesn’t work. Read Shermer’s book: “Why People Believe Weird Things”.

Dave Wendt (02:35:11) :
How is it that we know these measures? The center of the BG seems to be fairly mobile. Determining it in the present would seem to be a bit of a challenge, determining it 360 years in the past would seem highly unlikely.
Of course centre of the BG can an probably does move, but since gyre is more than 1000km across, and the dip in GMF covers most of it, it may not make great deal of difference.http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC15.htm
It appears that there is a reversed proportionality between the GMF in (the wider area of Arctic) and the North Atlantic temperature anomaly as can be seen in this diagram.http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC16.htm
Diagram shows the GMF along the transpolar current route, one of the main factors controlling the North Atlantic temperature anomaly.
See also: http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GandF.htm

vukcevic (04:29:13) :just mathematical modelling
I can understand that you are mathematically challenged, so we’ll try some hand waving instead:
Moving a conductor [sea water] through a magnetic field induces an electric current which heats the sea [immeasurably – but let that slide]. If the magnetic field is weaker, the electric current is weaker and the heating less. The field is some 17% weaker today than in 1650, so the heating today is correspondingly less [still apart from not being measurable].

irishspecialistnurseries,
CO2 freezes at -109.3° F. Antarctica gets down to -128.6 °F . Sorry that you don’t understand what the freezing point is, and that you feel the need to misrepresent what I wrote.

You may like to note that the highest mountains in the Alps have mean summer temperatures at -2Celsius but maximum summer temperatures of +10Celsius. Even this is not enough to ensure that the glaciers at the top of such mountains melt away to nothing during the summer. Therefore, what chance is there of such glaciers melting in Antartica where the temperatures are never greater than -30Celsius in the Summer? Very low surely. Of course, those glaciers close to the coast where the ice has a chance of slipping into the sea will melt on reaching the warmer ocean, but the vast majority of the ice is on the Antartic plateau with no obvious route to the ocean. Furthermore, the melting of glaciers in the Alps tends to be at its highest not due to warm days per se but due to warm Summer rain falling onto the glaciers – a process physically impossible in the Antartic.
I submit that it is not physically possible for significant levels of land ice in Antartica to melt and thus contribute to sea level rise as a result of AGW, even if such exists. The mean temperatures are far too low for AGW to raise the temperature up to melting point. Some ice may flow to the sea in glaciers, but it is a tiny proportion of the total, and readily replaced by precipitation inland that is always in the form of snow. We should perhaps be glad that the glaciers do indeed flow to the ocean and melt, because otherwise Antartica would act as a kind of precipitation trap, with snow falling on Antartica and staying there.

Richard said:
“while in the meantime the Artic ice is normal and there are blizzards on the mediterranean coast…”
Arctic sea ice is not normal, still showing a negative anomaly, and has not been at or above normal since 2004. Where do you get your data?
And the moisture for the the blizzards in Europe came directly from a very warm Caribbean…which I pointed out was headed toward Europe several days ago. This moisture combined with continued cold air being pushed down from the warmer than usual arctic (especially near Greenland). Warmth induced moisture + negative AO index=blizzards. The exact thing that happened to our east coast this winter happened to Europe, and has two factors:
El Nino + negative AO index
And neither of these is indicative of planetary cooling, and in fact, as we all know, the troposphere has been near, or above 20 year record temps this year.

To no one in particular:
None of us alive today has any first hand knowledge of an Ice Age or even a Little Ice Age. What we are about is best guessing within our little present age the nature of climate change that leads to another Ice Age or the end of the Ice Ages and the beginning of a Global Hothouse Age (A’la Dino d’Dinosaur); neither of which is going to be very pleasent for anyone –but which is completely natural and unavoidable, despite anything that Jones, Mann, or Fat Albert says.

R. Gates (07:08:42) :
So, how does the mid-upper troposphere undergo such a dramatic warming as it dumps this warmth into space from the preciptiatation of rain, frozen rain and snow without contributing to the cooling of the Earth? Oh, right, you’ve repealed the fundamental laws of thermodynamics just to satisfy your special pleading. Silly us.

Pascvaks (07:38:45) :
You do have first hand experience of an ice age. You are experiencing it right now with the composition of the air you breathe, the experience of snow and snow cover, the presence of the ice caps at the poles, the lifeforms present in the biosphere, and so much more.
Even in other glacial periods of the other ice ages there has seldom been an ice cap at the North Pole, or an ice cap which has extended as far south as the most recent 2 million years. This is an extremely unusual and cold event and experience for the Earth this past 20-30 million years. Do not underestimate its danger with respect to a collapse of the biosphere in the event of the carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere falling too low at 150ppm and less.

Leif Svalgaard (06:57:59) :
“If the magnetic field is weaker, the electric current is weaker and the heating less. The field is some 17% weaker today than in 1650, so the heating today is correspondingly less [still apart from not being measurable].”
You were obviously in the wrong department there (Danish Meteorological Institute).
Heating of the sea water by induced electric currents is of no consequence here, it is the reverse MF impacting on velocity.
Velocity of the gyre’s rotation controls relationship of deep saline currents (from North Atlantic and Bering Sea) and fresh surface waters inflow (from Northwest Canada and Far East Siberia).http://www.whoi.edu/cms/images/halocline_18008_56197_56788.jpg
It is this relationship that has an effect on salinity on the resultant transpolar current encountering the Gulf Stream at the shores of Greenland and Labrador Sea., where the stored heath of the Gulf Stream is released into atmosphere in the subpolar gyre.
As you can see from the above illustration there are number of smaller warm water gyres in the Arctic and each of them is affecting the transpolar current, hence the graph of the GMF Z along the way.http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC16.htm
The warm water current branching of the North Atlantic Current and combination of the Arctic cold currents create Labrador Sea currents; which tightly governs the strength of the Subpolar gyre’s circulation, which is the engine of the heat transport across the North Atlantic Ocean. This is heat absorbed in Equatorial Atlantic, and not any kind of heat due to induced currents (which indeed is negligible).

vukcevic (06:38:42) :
Of course centre of the BG can an probably does move, but since gyre is more than 1000km across, and the dip in GMF covers most of it, it may not make great deal of difference.http://iabp.apl.washington.edu/research_seaiceageextent.html
This paper suggests that in the late 80s the BG shifted significantly toward the Alaskan – Canadian corner of the Arctic, that the radius decreased almost a half, and that it stayed mostly in that configuration for the majority of the intervening years, confined to the area on the North American side of the antimeridian with its center well away from the center of GMP dip you linked to. From what I’ve seen the state of knowledge on the previous history of the BG is none too robust, but this type of shift seems to be viewed as not exceptional.

vukcevic (08:10:07) :reverse MF impacting on velocity.
OK, so you change the story. Fair enough. So, you are now saying that the Earth magnetic field is slowing the ocean current, so a weaker magnetic field [as today] should slow the current relative to 1650. The ocean current now being slower meaning more warm water flowing to the pole.

Leif Svalgaard (08:33:57) :
vukcevic (08:10:07) :
reverse MF impacting on velocity.
OK, so you change the story. Fair enough. So, you are now saying that the Earth magnetic field is slowing the ocean current, so a weaker magnetic field [as today] should slow the current relative to 1650. The ocean current now being slower meaning more warm water flowing to the pole.
or do I have that backwards? it is hard to figure out what you are saying. Let me try again to explain what I think you are saying:
Electric currents induced by the gyre moving in the Earth’s magnetic field brakes the gyre. The magnetic field now being lower should mean less braking and hence stronger flow, etc.
Now, this comes down again to a calculation of the Lorentz force on the gyre and again that force is unmeasurably small and in the wrong direction. Try it: F = q * v x B, or rather dF = q* v x dB. dB is 1/1000 of B. q is the electric charge [depends on the conductivity of sea water]. B is vertical, v is horizontal along latitude, so F is horizontal along longitude. Try to explain which forces your are talking about, which directions they have, etc. Be specific.

Ref – D. Patterson (08:02:52) :
Pascvaks (07:38:45) :
“This is an extremely unusual and cold event and experience for the Earth this past 20-30 million years. Do not underestimate its danger with respect to a collapse of the biosphere in the event of the carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere falling too low at 150ppm and less.”
______________________
I know, it is a lot like being on the Titanic and standing at the bow with my hands stretched out like a bird and the cold North Atlantic winds chilling me to the bone. You’re right. But at the moment, I feel fine; the freezing ocean waves are a problem for another day. Tonight we dine at the Captain’s Table and dance till dawn. Hoohah!
PS: Our DNA says we’re all related so I have no doubt that some of the family will survive whatever happens. Ain’t life a beach?

Here is how NASA Satellite Grace works:http://www.csr.utexas.edu/grace/science/gravity_measurement.html
If the Antartic ice sheet is really 300,000,000 km3 and they can distinguish 100km3 it means they have invented an instrument capable of get a resolution of at least 1/3,000,000 of the ice sheet.
This is amazing, especially if they get it by the gravity changes.
Being the ice specific weight 917kg/m3 @0°C and water specific weight 999,8kg/m3. The difference measured should be just 82.8kg/m3, or 82,800,000,000kg/km3 which in our case gives 8,280,000,000,000kg that is 8.28×10^12kg.
But let’s imagine, the ice goes directly into the air without melting has they suppose.
So imagine the whole 917kg/m3 disappears (the ice sublimates, so I istantiate that the vapour mass is negligible respect to the ice), it means the satellites measures -9.17×10^13kg.
I both cases, I can’t imagine how they reject the whole earth mass which is about 6×10^24kg.
They must have a resolution of at least 1.526×10^-11 of the Earth mass to appreciate the change.
Note also that if the ice doesn’t melt but sublimate, the mass variation changes of sign, so how do they know if the ice is increased or decreased by the gravitational measurements?
Where I’m wrong?
Does anybody know how they do?

Leif Svalgaard (08:33:57) :
vukcevic (08:10:07) :
reverse MF impacting on velocity.
OK, so you change the story.
What a nonsense you just wrote (perhaps you should apologise). Nowhere have I mentioned heating of water by electric currents now or before. When climatologists talk about heat transfer they talk about this:http://forces.si.edu/arctic/images/02_02_04_a.gifhttp://icons-pe.wxug.com/data/climate_images/conveyor.jpg
Some time ago I wrote this:http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/41/83/04/PDF/NATA.pdf
from which I quote again:
The warm water current branching of the North Atlantic Current and combination of the Arctic cold currents create Labrador Sea currents; which tightly governs the strength of the Subpolar gyre’s circulation, which is the engine of the heat transport across the North Atlantic Ocean.
“So, you are now saying that the Earth magnetic field is slowing the ocean current, so a weaker magnetic field [as today] should slow the current relative to 1650. The ocean current now being slower meaning more warm water flowing to the pole.”
Exactly oposite. Stronger field reduces more the velocity of conductor: remind yourself of your “so we’ll try some hand waving instead” try to move a conductor in stronger and weaker field: which requires more force, think of a frictionless electromagnetic brake.

Dave Wendt (08:30:53) :
Thanks for the link. I do occasionally go through the Amap website. If BG moves to Canada-Alaska side it would presumably counter interact and slow down the cold Davis Strait currenthttp://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC16.htm
and so contribute to higher temp as it was case since 80’s.
You are correct, my knowledge is not that robust either (now retired electronic engineer), but it is supplanted by intuition, logic (Dr. S. may characterise it as ‘reverse’) and of cause internet. Just a hobby, no scientific reputation to defend.

Incidentally, the size of Antartica can be roughly said to be similar to the size of the US. So imagine that all the rainfall in the US that contributes to the Mississippi, the Colarado and America’s other great rivers were in fact falling as snow on the Rocky Mountains, and then compacting into ice super-frozen at -50Celsius. And this was happening every year, that huge volume of water from all the rivers of the US compacting as hard-frozen ice in the Rockies, and basically staying there because it can’t readily flow away as water.
That is basically what is happening in Antartica right now. And the AGW proponents would have you believe that the small amount of ice that gets squeezed off into the sea from the pressure of all this newly created ice inland where it then melts is going to mean London gets drowned. Let’s face it, there is no physical reason for believing that this will ever happen.

vukcevic (09:10:10) :Nowhere have I mentioned heating of water by electric currents now or before.
I distinctly remember having this discussion several times over the last year or so, but do not need to take the time to dig it up since you now don’t believe that anymore.Exactly oposite. Stronger field reduces more the velocity of conductor
Vertical field, latitudinal flow: which way does the Lorentz force v x B point?

Pascvaks (09:59:57) :
Thanks for that. I made several more attempts which also didn’t work, so I had them deleted. The specific map I was referring to is figure 3-27. Figure 2-20 also show similar information

Leif Svalgaard (10:00:29) :
“I distinctly remember having this discussion several times over the last year or so, but do not need to take the time to dig it up since you now don’t believe that anymore.”
No sir, you got it wrong, not then, not before I suggested electrical heating. You got it wrong then, you kept getting it wrong, and got it wrong now. Here some extracts from my first ever posting on the matter:
(NASA now saying that a Dalton Minimum repeat is possible- WUWT )
vukcevic (12:39:16) :
….. but that is not point! Electrical heating is not the point !!!…
vukcevic (04:27:37) :
Copper plate will spin freely until you bring a permanent magnet close to it, in which case it will slow down and stop, due to induction of a counter emf ! (basic physics).
vukcevic (14:31:13) :
You cannot help putting wrong interpretation in order to supposedly ‘win’ the argument. ELECTRIC CURRENTS DO NOT DRIVE OCEAN’S CURRENTS ! Induced counter emf slows fractionally polar current down. Emf is not energy source, it acts as an electric break. Solar energy is nothing to do with Beaufort gyre, it is most of the time entirely under ice cap, and its waters are not exposed to solar heating.http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/07/28/nasa-now-saying-that-a-dalton-minimum-repeat-is-possible/
(when I get the wrong end of the stick I do say the word ‘sorry’)

vukcevic (09:28:44) :
I can’t say I really “grok” the subtleties of your argument with Dr Svaalgard, but I have been attending to Arctic circulation patterns since I came across the Rigor and Wallace paper I referenced above more than a year ago. One of the resources I’ve found interesting, and you might also, is the daily ice drift maps at the DMI sitehttp://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icedrift/index.uk.php
To my eye at least the drift patterns since the beginning of the year suggest the BG may be attempting to return to a pattern closer to one on the map you linked. It’s probably too early to tell, but if that pattern does reemerge it would suggest that the uptrend in Arctic sea ice will be stronger in the future.
Personally I wouldn’t choose to go head to head with Leif on anything within his scientific purview, but as Grandpa used to say, “you can’t sharpen your knife on a stick of butter”.

vukcevic (09:10:10) :Exactly oposite. Stronger field reduces more the velocity of conductor
Gregory Ryskin believes just the opposite, namely that ocean currents are the CAUSE of the secular variation:http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/1367-2630/11/6/063015/njp9_6_063015.html
His calculations [but you do not believe in mathematics anyway] are highly mathematical and not correct [we can go through them step for step if you like]. Ryskin also proposes [elsewhere] than methane explosions on the ocean floor “Similar, smaller-scale events could have happened since, which might explain the Biblical flood, for example, suggests Gregory Ryskin of […] it’s too important to ignore,” says Ryskin. Ryskin is usually considered a crank. You know with the usual signs: ‘conventional science opposes what I say, so there must be something to it…’.
Perhaps you could reverse your suggested direction of causation and join Ryskin’s bandwagon…

vukcevic (10:51:24) :(when I get the wrong end of the stick I do say the word ‘sorry’)
I can say sorry too. What confuses me is the constant lack of clarity as to what you propose. But it is good to have on record that you do not think electric currents are heating the oceans. This is at last something concrete.
You did not answer my question about the direction of the Lorentz force.

Dave Wendt (10:57:27) :
Personally I wouldn’t choose to go head to head with Leif on anything within his scientific purview, but as Grandpa used to say, “you can’t sharpen your knife on a stick of butter”.
You may be right, we had ‘friendly’ exchange of views for some time now. I do not mind being flattened by someone of his stature, knowledge and experience, but however much he tries, I do not give up. I have great respect for good old doc, I value his views, but that doesn’t mean I have to agree, if I see a reason not to.
Thanks for the DMI link, I shall look it up, it looks it might have some good stuff.

Leif Svalgaard (11:06:11) :Gregory Ryskin believes just the opposite, namely that ocean currents are the CAUSE of the secular variation
Without going through the mathematics [which nobody here has the patience for] a simple argument can be given why ocean currents are not the cause of the secular variation of the Earth’s field: polarity reversals. which would require the global ocean currents to flow the other way from time to time.

D. Patterson said:
“So, how does the mid-upper troposphere undergo such a dramatic warming as it dumps this warmth into space from the preciptiatation of rain, frozen rain and snow without contributing to the cooling of the Earth? Oh, right, you’ve repealed the fundamental laws of thermodynamics just to satisfy your special pleading. Silly us.”
First of all, the troposphere is a dynamic system, (like everything else on this planet) and it isn’t just “dumping warmth into space” during precipitation events. This doesn’t even make any sense from any perspective. As a dynamic system, the heat in the troposhere is constantly in flux, from oceans, solar radiation, etc. Heat coming in and going out all the time. But as we all should know, the stratosphere has been cooling over the last few decades, just as predicted by AGW models. Why? Well of course precisely because more heat has been “trapped” in the troposphere, meaning of course that the GH gases are doing exactly what GH gases do, and delaying the transfer of heat from the troposphere to the stratosphere. So there is more heat staying in the troposphere then leaving on a net basis…exactly as predicted by AGW models. The heat transfer out of the troposphere, on a net basis, is slowed down. To sugget that precipitation events in the troposphere, when looked at from a global basis, should suddenly cool down the tropopshere, would forget the fact that simultaneously heat is being transferred into it from the oceans and solar radiation…and the net heat gain, if the AGW hypothesis is corrrect, tips the scale toward warming.

Considering oscillations occur in both the Atlantic and Pacific, (PDO and AMO,) I do not see why reflections of these oscillations shouldn’t be seen in both the Arctic and Antarctic.
Considering the PDO has warm and cool cycles, I don’t see why the Antarctic shouldn’t also have cycles which are either relatively warm and moist or relatively cold and dry. If the Pacific cycle lasts 30 years warm and 30 years cold, it would seem the Antarctic reflection should also have thirty years of one pattern and 30 years of another.
Now consider what the effects of thirty years of cold and dry might be. It seems it would be a drought. Just as a reservoir of water shrinks in a drought, the reservoir represented by the huge mass of Antarctic ice would also shrink.
Evaporation would be replaced by sublimation. Over a surface area as huge as Antarctica the amount of H2O turned directly from solid to gas would be enormous.
Unless a reservoir’s floodgates are completely closed, a reservoir continues to lose water even during a drought due to the simple fact water flows away downstream faster than it is replaced. There is no way to close Antarctica’s “floodgates,” which are its glaciers, and the amount of “runoff” via glaciers during a drought could easily exceed the amount added by sparse snowfall.
Using this simple way of viewing things, it is quite easy to image a drought causing the mass of Antarctica to shrink, even with the weather turning colder and drier.
There’s no need to bring up global warming at all.

Gail Combs (04:49:43) :
Anu (19:17:23) :
You quote a lot of alarmist “rapidly sea level rise” information.
I quoted NSIDC and NASA.
If you prefer to call scientists “alarmists”, that is your personal, emotional response. Personally, I call NFL players “spoiled, steroid-laden millionaires”.I have a couple of problems with it. Given the size of the Larsen B shelf there should have been a measurable effect in increase of sea ice and sea level rise to prove the theory correct.
Oh, is ice shelf collapse and releasing the dammed up glacier a “theory” now ? Some parts of science are just measurements.
Do the math.
The GRACE satellite measured 24 cubic miles of ice lost from Antarctica in 2002 (see the quote above). If the Larsen B ice shelf was responsible for HALF of that ice loss (generous), how much would you expect the world’s oceans to rise ?
The world’s oceans are 141,600,000 square miles.
If 12 cubic miles of new water are dumped into it, its height will rise 0.005369 inches. Also known as 0.13638 mm
Just what do you think is causing the measured sea level rise these days ?First the Larsen B Ice Shelf disintegration took place in 2002. A look at the global sea ice variation shows no real impact. http://noconsensus.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/global-sea-ice-area-variation-nasateam-algorithm.jpg
What makes you think glaciers and icebergs flowing into the Southern Ocean in summer will not melt ?http://nsidc.org/news/press/larsen_B/2002_animation.html
The oceans of the world, as measured by satellite, are rising about 3 mm/year in the last 16 years. These melting ice shelfs, which release continental, non-floating ice into the oceans to melt, are certainly part of this measured rise.http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/03/scientists-track-the-oceans-rise-as-the-globe-warms.arsI notice the articles talk about “accelerated and thinned” they do not talk about the total volume of ice going into the sea per unit time. Perhaps this is why there has been no impact. The glaciers are moving faster but due to thinning the amount of ice dumped into the sea remains about the same.
I’m glad to see your curiosity. Try to find the actual papers of research, not just write-ups, if you want to see actual volume of ice flowing per ice shelf collapse – there are studies on this.
Before the ice shelf breaks up, it is holding back the glaciers from flowing into the ocean, except for the basically steady-state condition of icebergs calving and snow falling onto the continent.http://nsidc.org/news/press/glac/why.html
Of course, you’d need lots of ice shelves to breakup to really affect glacier flow:http://nsidc.org/news/press/20080325_Wilkins.htmlThe Wilkins is one of a string of ice shelves that have collapsed in the West Antarctic Peninsula in the past thirty years. The Larsen B became the most well-known of these, disappearing in just over thirty days in 2002. The Prince Gustav Channel, Larsen Inlet, Larsen A, Wordie, Muller, and the Jones Ice Shelf collapses also underscore the unprecedented warming in this region of Antarctica.

R. Gates (11:50:31)
What do you make of this then ?http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/sola/5/0/53/_pdf
“The evidence for the cooling trend in the stratosphere may need to be
revisited. This study presents evidence that the stratosphere has been
slightly warming since 1996.”
The stratosphere seems to cool when the sun is more active and warm when it is less active. At the same time the thermosphere seems to warm when the sun is more active and cool when it is less active.
Clearly something about changes in solar surface activity affects the thermosphere and stratosphere in opposite ways.
I seem to recall you conceding that such a phenomenon in the face of increasing CO2 would be a problem for the AGW theory.

Anu (13:39:47) :
Just what do you think is causing the measured sea level rise these days ?
The oceans of the world, as measured by satellite, are rising about 3 mm/year in the last 16 years. These melting ice shelfs, which release continental, non-floating ice into the oceans to melt, are certainly part of this measured rise.
The TOPEX satellites responsible for the early years of sea level measurement were subject to rather significant problems of orbital uncertainty and atmospheric correction. When the JASON sat went up it included improvements, that by reports I’ve seen seem to have done a fairly incredible job of addressing those problems. Perhaps coincidentally or not, at the point where the JASON data kickin the annual increase in sea level drops from +3mm/yr to numbers that are actually below the long term trend.
There is also the problem that, even if you take millions of measurements from a satellite >1300kms up to a highly variable surface and the error per measurement is a close match for that variablity, when you try to analyze the data it’s apt to resolve to a fairly precise number which may not reflect the uncertainty of the actual range you’re trying to determine.
Steric changes due to ocean temperatures are also a problem because those temps are so poorly quantified.
And even if the +3mm/yr trend should continue, the extra increase by the turn of the next century would be less than the length of a dollar bill.
“The Prince Gustav Channel, Larsen Inlet, Larsen A, Wordie, Muller, and the Jones Ice Shelf collapses also underscore the unprecedented warming in this region of Antarctica.”
The problem with declaring the warming unprecedented is that the temp data in the Antarctic is not particularly robust and our knowledge of prior precedent even less so.

Stephen Wilde (14:41:31) :Clearly something about changes in solar surface activity affects the thermosphere and stratosphere in opposite ways.
Whatever happens in the thermosphere has no effect anywhere else. The stratospheric temperature seems to be controlled more by the change in Fluorocarbons than anything else.

vukcevic (12:04:04) :http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/07/28/nasa-now-saying-that-a-dalton-minimum-repeat-is-possible/
Now that you reminded me of that topic, let me repeat from my reply:
Leif Svalgaard (10:04:31) :
Let’s do the numbers. I asked the engineer in you to do it and you refused [for good reason as we shall see]. Here goes:
The emf from a conductor moving at velocity v in a magnetic field B is E = vB [as v and B are nearly perpendicular] per unit length. Let the speed of the circualtion be v = 1 m/s, B = 50,000 nT = 5E-5 T, and the length L of the gyre path be 6000 km = 6E6 m, then the total emf becomes V = E*L = 300 Volt [check my math as we go along as I’m just typing this in as I go]. The resistivity R of sea water is 0.2 ohm, hence the current I = V/R = 1500 amps. The power is then P = V*I = 300*1500 = 450,000 W. The solar input is perhaps 45 W/m2 over the polar cap [low angle, high albedo, etc], so the total power P is the same as the solar input to an area of P/45 = 10,000 square meter, which is 100,000,000 times less than the solar power to the polar region. Since the secular movement of B is not the whole of B, but much smaller, say a generous 10%, the effect of magnetic polar wander is 1000,000,000 times smaller than the ordinary solar input, hence totally insignificant. I had assumed that this took place in the upper 1 meter. If we let the ocean current go down 1000 meter [much too much as the speed of the gyre at depth is small] the one billion becomes 1 million, still negligible.
As I said, there is not enough energy in this to do anything [apart from the force being in the wrong direction]
————
Let me reiterate why you qualify as a nutty crank [apart from your self-professed admission thereof]. It is this:
vukcevic (11:29:51) :but however much he tries, I do not give up
A scientist is prepared to give up when the evidence goes against him. He never says: “I do not give up”. That is the difference.

Leif Svalgaard (14:51:39)
My point is NOT that the thermosphere projects effects downwards. That has never been my position. I said that previously but you did not register it. I agree that in general the atmosphere cannot project changes in energy content downward because of the decreasing densities as one goes higher. We are agreed on that.
My point is that changes in the level of solar surface activity DO seem to have effects on various layers if not on ALL the layers of the atmosphere and possibly also the upper layers of the ocean with a subsequent effect on the RATE of energy flow from one layer to another.
That results in DIFFERENTIAL effects on different layers so that one layer cools in relation to another layer which warms in relation to yet another layer.
Your point about Fluorocarbons is fine. Chemical reactions seem to be involved at the levels where ozone is found but again that is a consequence of SOLAR surface variability and not a consequence of variations in total solar power output which I accept seem too small to do anything much except on long timescales.
You have never addressed my fundamental point which is that there is independent variability in rates of upward energy transfer at each layer in the air and oceans. The irregularity of the flow of energy from the sun (NOT the absolute power output) does seem to affect the RATES of energy flow from layer to layer of oceans and air depending on a combination of the solar wavelengths involved and the physical characteristics of each particular layer.
Thus the troposphere can warm or cool as the ocean surfaces cool and warm from internal ocean variability and the troposphere can warm or cool as the stratosphere cools and warms from solar surface variability.
The temperature of the troposphere is at the mercy of changes in the RATES of energy flow from the oceans below and to space above.
Internal oceanic cycles dictate the former and solar surface variability dictates the latter.
I’ve noted your comments about your past meteorological experience but would respectfully suggest that the meteorology you learned does not provide useful answers.
I heard it said that an unexpected correlation suggests that something has been missed.
Perhaps you could explain to me the following observations:
i) From 1975 to 2000 there were lots of strong El Ninos but they did NOT result in any strengthening of the Arctic and Antarctic Oscillations.
ii) During the cooling of the 1950’s and 1960’s and again now El Nino events have been associated with stronger Arctic and Antarctic Oscillations.
iii) In the 1950’s and 1960’s we had relatively weak solar cycle 20 and now we have a weak cycle 24. In contrast from 1975 to 2000 we had relatively strong cycles 21, 22 and 23.
The obvious conclusion is that from 1975 to 2000 the stronger solar cycles facilitated the venting to space of the excess energy from all those El Ninos by ensuring that the Arctic and Antarctic Oscillations remained relatively weak.
An unexpected correlation such as that needs careful examination because it points to a possible defect in general climate theory and I have suggested the answer but you have not yet provided an alternative explanation.
Thank you for directing my attention to the aspects of my climate description which you and others find difficult to follow.

Stephen Wilde (15:33:50) :Thank you for directing my attention to the aspects of my climate description which you and others find difficult to follow.
With all due respect, I have given up on explaining the facts to you.The temperature of the troposphere is at the mercy of changes in the RATES of energy flow from the oceans below and to space above. makes no sense at all. What is the RATE of energy flow? I can understand energy flow, so many Joules per second [=Watts] per square meter. The RATE of something is the first derivative of that something, so the ‘change of the RATE’ is the second derivative of that something. And here is where my understanding of what you are trying to say slips away.

Stephen Wilde (15:33:50) :The temperature of the troposphere is at the mercy of changes in the RATES of energy flow from the oceans below and to space above.
Assuming that the CAPITALIZED ‘rates’ is just a filler with no real meaning and that you simply mean ‘the temperature of the troposphere is at mercy of the energy flow from the oceans below and to space above’, I have these comments:
1) The troposphere is heated from below
2) The energy flow to space precisely equals the inflow from the Sun [allowing for albedo]. Greenhouse effects determine the altitude of the layer that radiates to space [where the temperature equals that of a blackbody radiating away all incoming radiation]. Currently that is about 5 km up where the temperature is -19C. If there were no atmosphere, that altitude would be 0 km. If you make our atmosphere ten times as dense, that altitude would move up dramatically and the surface temperature would be much higher, but the radiation to space would be exactly the same, namely equal to what comes in from the Sun.

Gary Pearse (13:36:59) :
The Nansen Sea Ice Area and Sea Ice Extent graphs for the Arctic have swung up through the average, so both polar caps are cooling nicely.http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/ice-area-and-extent-in-arctic
———–
You’re confusing the 2009 curve with the 1979-2006 “average”. Look again at the bottom curves – the black line is “Monthly average 1979-2006”.
Since the Arctic is warming, the 1979-2006 curve is even lower than the 1979-2000 average curve (since 2001-2006 are all below the 1979-2000 average curve), given here:http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20100303_Figure2.png
Look at August, September, October – that’s where the Summer Melt is greatest, and recent years have really fallen below the average (2007, 2008, 2009).
We’ll see if the Arctic is “cooling nicely” this September.

Gail Combs (03:17:15) :
REPLY:
That was taken out of context. Read the WHOLE exchange. Oh wait you are a AGW type so taking it out of context to make fun of someone is the politically correct move. Excuse me for thinking you might be interested in the science.
———-
Shouldn’t that be “an AGW type” ?
You’re quite right, context is very important for data points and emails.

Joey,
Thx for the feedback. I used to be a global warming true believer for many decades until I started checking the facts for myself.
In my field of computer science/engineering, we just don’t see incompetence like is prevalent in climate science. The key IPCC players would lose their jobs in a matter of weeks if they turned out cr@p like that in the engineering world.
Sometimes this feels like shooting fish in a barrel.

Steve Goddard (21:28:05) :
Anu,
Gary wasn’t confusing anything. Nansen changed the graph as they often do. BTW -you linked to the wrong NSIDC graph.
You are coming in to this discussion quite late.http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/04/nsidc-confirms-wuwt-ice-forecast/
———-
OK, thanks.
I saw somebody on another thread wondering about Nansen graphs, too – I didn’t realize Norwegians were so haphazard.
My NSIDC graph is a few days old, but I like the +/- 2 standard-deviations feature.
Yes, it’s pretty late.

People can argue back and forth until they’re blue in the face, or red in the face (depending upon what the climate does do). But I ask this….
If the naysayers are right and we go through all of the turmoil of adapting our way of life so that we produce minimal greenhouse gases and manage to obtain energy without fossil fuel or nuclear pollution, and it turns out to be unnecessary, isn’t that still a better place to be than if…….they’re wrong, and the damage we continue to wrought is irreversible? Only time will tell. Do our children’s children deserve the legacy resulting from living only for today’s profits?

R. Gates (07:08:42) : Arctic sea ice is not normal, still showing a negative anomaly, and has not been at or above normal since 2004. Where do you get your data?
From the IJIS site. On the 10th of March 2004 the Arctic Ice was 14.36 million sq Kms and on the 10th of March 2010 14.33 million sq kms.
The main point is you claim two months (Jan and Feb 2010) of tropospheric hotspots indicate AGW, but the absence of this hotspot for 360 months previous to this does not disprove the AGW theory. If you predict it will rain in the Atacama desert, once in a century you will be correct.

Leif Svalgaard (16:30:00)
“The energy flow to space precisely equals the inflow from the Sun [allowing for albedo]. Greenhouse effects determine the altitude of the layer that radiates to space [where the temperature equals that of a blackbody radiating away all incoming radiation]. Currently that is about 5 km up where the temperature is -19C. If there were no atmosphere, that altitude would be 0 km. If you make our atmosphere ten times as dense, that altitude would move up dramatically and the surface temperature would be much higher, but the radiation to space would be exactly the same, namely equal to what comes in from the Sun.”
Is the energy flow to space so perfectly and precisely balanced or does it vary slightly ?
Even if it is precise do you accept that the speed of energy transfer (in Joules per second) can vary over time within and between the different layers of air and ocean ?
If not then how do you explain the differential warming and cooling of separate layers ?
The movement up and down of the layer that radiates to space is a given. What we are considering is the processes that dictate that movement. I have elsewhere said that not only do the air circulation systems move latitudinally to maintain stability but also the tropopause (and by implication the other layers of the atmosphere) move up and down.
I don’t think you have any problem with changes in sea surface temperatures having the required effect. Where you seem to stick is in saying that no changes in solar input can have a similar effect from above.
The trouble is that real world phenomena are telling us that the variability from below is insufficient on it’s own to explain phenomena such as the variations in the strength of the Arctic and Antarctic Oscillations. Others have suggested an effect from above so I am not alone on that.
Each layer of the Earth’s system appears to respond differently to changes in the flow of energy from the sun (irregularity, not absolute power output) depending on the physical characteristics of that layer and the solar wavelengths that affect that layer.
The thermosphere responds very differently to the stratosphere which responds very differently to the troposphere and the layers of the ocean penetrated by incoming solar energy respond very differently again.
That is where the answer to the conundrum must lie.

“where the temperature equals that of a blackbody radiating away all incoming radiation.”
Surely that shoud be:
‘where the temperature equals that of a greybody radiating away all incoming radiation.’
And the greyness of the body would be constantly varying would it not ?

Leif Svalgaard (15:09:30) :
Your rehashed calculation is based on a wrong premise of then suggested polar movement. In the present approach dFlux/dt = ~0 (10 micro Tesla over period of 350years365x86400= 11,037,600,000sec giving delta ~ 5*10^-15, in practice no current). To calculate current one should apply Faraday’s paradox principle.
However, sea water is ionised and is under influence of magnetic field, (case of a charged particle of a velocity v injected in perpendicular constant field B, the Lorentz force F = qv × B is outward radial, which in theory should be varying the existing radius of gyre trajectory as function of B, if angular momentum conservation is evoked, results in speeding and slowing down of the gyre.
However I suspect ions trajectory is not a simple circle, but a kind of e squashed (two-dimensional) enclosed spiral (kind of a geo-equatorial satellite would make in its solar orbit). In reality matters are always far more complicated.
I say bring in Gregory Ryskin!

“Using this simple way of viewing things, it is quite easy to image a drought causing the mass of Antarctica to shrink, even with the weather turning colder and drier.”
But there isn’t a drought. Antartica is officially classed as a “desert” but in fact 17cm of new ice forms every year due to falling snow being compacted. This is interesting, because Antartica has a surface area which is 23 times smaller than the entire surface area of the oceans. So in theory we can calculate just how much water is being evaporated from the oceans to end up as ice in Antartica. 17/23 =0.7cm. So every year the oceans are reduced by 0.7cm to end up as ice in Antartica.
It is perhaps as well that Antartica is now full to overflowing with ice and some is flowing back into the ocean, or we would find that every 100 years the oceans would have receded by 0.7meters due to this one-way traffic, which would leave some major coastal cities high and dry.
The fact is that the fresh snowfall in Antartica every year results in a similar amount of ice flowing into the sea, such that the system is entirely stable. The levels of snowfall could change very appreciably without any impact on the levels of the ocean, so AGW is unlikely to have any effect. It is like a beaker that is already full of water – the water can stop pouring in or pour in faster, but the level of water in the beaker will remain the same.

Stephen Wilde: Your hypothesis needs some work.
You wrote, “Normally the Arctic will warm and the Antarctic will cool during a period when the climate system is gaining energy. Vice versa when the climate system is losing energy as now. Pointing to a relatively warm troposphere is not relevant here because a warm troposphere is generally an indication of net overall system cooling as energy leaves the oceans faster on it’s way to space.”
You need to consider periods when the Arctic and Antarctic can be warming or cooling in unison, which appears to be quite often.http://i43.tinypic.com/a4wiu8.png
You wrote, “And also only while the sun’s surface remains quiescent. From 1975 to 2000 the run of strong El Ninos was largely offset by the active sun which allowed a faster venting of the oceanic energy to space. Now with a quiet sun and an El Nino the excess energy from the oceans is restrained from being vented fast enough and some of that energy is being redirected downward in the Arctic and Antarctic Oscillations to give cold mid latitudes and heavy snowfalls.”
First, the ocean basin that contributed the most to the rise in Global OHC since 1955 was the North Atlantic (~30%). It could be argued that this is a result of AMOC. And it’s also the ocean basin with the greatest decline in OHC since 2005, so it could be argued that the recent decline is also a function of AMOC. What we then see, if we remove the North Atlantic from the OHC data, is that the OHC of the remainder of the ocean basins is actually increasing.http://i42.tinypic.com/282grr5.png
Second, I’ve posted a similar graph before in response to another of your comments. That time I used the tropical Pacific OHC. This time it’s global OHC versus NINO3.4 SST anomalies versus scaled Sunspot Number. Can you find any correlation between OHC and the solar cycle?http://i44.tinypic.com/eknwh5.png
Third, you also need to consider cloud cover.

Bob Tisdale (03:51:19) :
“First, the ocean basin that contributed the most to the rise in Global OHC since 1955 was the North Atlantic (~30%). It could be argued that this is a result of AMOC. And it’s also the ocean basin with the greatest decline in OHC since 2005, so it could be argued that the recent decline is also a function of AMOC.”
The above is in a good agreement with my (however ‘non-expert’) research into these matters. If Geomagnetic field GMF has any role in the climatic processes (either as a cause, consequence-G. Ryskin, or an unresolved proxy) than correlation between the GMF and temperature anomaly (either meaningful or coincidental), only exists to any significant degree, for the area of the far North Atlantic and the Arctic.http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC16.htm

“If the naysayers are right and we go through all of the turmoil of adapting our way of life so that we produce minimal greenhouse gases and manage to obtain energy without fossil fuel or nuclear pollution, and it turns out to be unnecessary, isn’t that still a better place to be”
You are making the assumption that the solutions proposed will actually be generally benign. In fact since a rapid expansion of nuclear power is the most likely outcome of the Western desire to reduce CO2 emissions, the outcome is unlikely to be anything but benign. Furthermore, it is unlikely to be succesful, since countries outside the Western world like China and India have realised that harnessing the enormous power of coal makes their populations more productive, and hence less poor. They see a different equation where hoisting large parts of their population out of poverty by rapid industrialisation results in a far more promising future than minor concerns about rising sea levels, and comes with a cast-iron guarantee of success.

Peter McBride (23:46:06) :
“People can argue back and forth until they’re blue in the face, or red in the face (depending upon what the climate does do). But I ask this….
If the naysayers are right and we go through all of the turmoil of adapting our way of life so that we produce minimal greenhouse gases and manage to obtain energy without fossil fuel or nuclear pollution, and it turns out to be unnecessary, isn’t that still a better place to be than if…….they’re wrong, and the damage we continue to wrought is irreversible? Only time will tell. Do our children’s children deserve the legacy resulting from living only for today’s profits?”
Your logic is flawed.
There are three possible outcomes for climate change, and each requires a different strategy to optimise standard of living and ultimately the number of people the Earth can sustain.
1. Climate warms significantly – Level of anthropomorphic CO2 proved to be the cause.
Strategy:- Cut down on levels of CO2 emitted by using expensive clean energy.
Extra cost to each human-being high – Standard of living much lower than present.
2. Climate stays within +/- a couple of degrees Celsius of present:-
Strategy:- Continue to use fossil fuel until it’s cost makes alternative energy sources cheaper than fossil fuel.
Extra cost to each human-being low – Standard of living similar to present.
3. Climate cools significantly.
Strategy:- Continue to use fossil fuel until it’s cost makes alternative energy sources cheaper than fossil fuel.
Extra cost to each human-being high – Standard of living much lower than present.
As the cost of 1 and 3 are high and there is no factual evidence for either scenario, the precautionary principle says 2 is the best option to ensure that we, and our children’s children have the best chance of a good future.

Leif Svalgaard (11:06:11) :
“Perhaps you could reverse your suggested direction of causation and join Ryskin’s bandwagon…”
I had a quick scan through Ryskin’s paper, I think there are some interesting part-ideas there, maths is at a level I can cope with, I just might be tempted to spend some time reading it.
G.R: “Data analysis exhibits striking temporal correlation between the intensity of the North Atlantic oceanic circulation and secular variation in Western Europe; this explains, in particular, the geomagnetic jerks, and the recently discovered correlation between secular variation and climate. Spatial correlation between ocean currents and secular variation is also strong.”

Stephen Wilde (00:44:29) :Is the energy flow to space so perfectly and precisely balanced or does it vary slightly ?
It varies in concert with the variation of the incoming radiation [TSI] and with changes in the albedo, but is always balanced.Even if it is precise do you accept that the speed of energy transfer (in Joules per second) can vary over time within and between the different layers of air and ocean ?
If you consider a given layer, then what enters at one boundary must equal what exits at the other. Energy spends a [very] short time within the layer.also the tropopause (and by implication the other layers of the atmosphere) move up and down.
The movements are dictated by the temperature, not the temperature dictated by the movement.the variability from below is insufficient on it’s own to explain phenomena such as the variations in the strength of the Arctic and Antarctic Oscillations.
The variation from above is much smaller than that from below. So if from below is insufficient …Others have suggested an effect from above so I am not alone on that.
Like the argument that smoking must be good for you since so many do it.The thermosphere responds very differently to the stratosphere which responds very differently to the troposphere and the layers of the ocean penetrated by incoming solar energy respond very differently again.
They respond to different physical processes and stimuli [and the thermosphere has nothing to do with anything]That is where the answer to the conundrum must lie.
What conundrum? A complicated system has variations all on its own. It only becomes a problem if you want to shoehorn them into a preconceived hypothesis.
Stephen Wilde (01:32:13) :Surely that shoud be:
‘where the temperature equals that of a greybody radiating away all incoming radiation.’
A grey body is defined as a body with constant emissivity over all wavelengths and temperatures, surely that is not our Earth.
By taking into account the albedo, we have taken care of most of the emissivity changes. Greenhouse gases take care of the rest. The grey/black thing is a typical straw man in these discussions.
vukcevic (03:04:22) :However, sea water is ionised
The ‘however’ is misplaced since I stated that sea water is a conductor.which in theory should be varying the existing radius of gyre trajectory as function of B, if angular momentum conservation is evoked, results in speeding and slowing down of the gyre.
As the gyre expands v decreases so the Lorentz force decreases with it such as the stop the expansion.
But all this matters not, as the mechanical forces resulting are much too small to have any effects. The force/energy argument is so compelling that all the details don’t matter at all.

There is always some risk in everything we do. Does it make sense to not go to work or school because you might catch the flu or get in an accident? People who have breasts often get breast cancer later in life and die. Does it make sense to give widespread radical mastectomies, in order to mitigate the risk?
Populations have a way of controlling themselves one way or another, but it isn’t going to be global warming that kills us – though I would love to see the climate warm up a few degrees where I live.

Leif Svalgaard (06:48:21) :
It varies in concert with the variation of the incoming radiation [TSI] and with changes in the albedo, but is always balanced.
Leif, if this statement is totally correct how do we get Ice Ages and very warm periods?
Why is the Climate not always Balanced?
Surely there has to be a Time element involved in the Balancing mechanism?

A C Osborn (07:44:06) :Leif, if this statement is totally correct how do we get Ice Ages and very warm periods?
Answering your question [take note of that]: because the orbit of the Earth and its axis tilt change with time. Interestingly enough, those changes are mediated by the planets and the Moon: Jupiter is the main reason the orbit/tilt varies and the Moon is the main reason that the variation of the tilt does not get too large. So, Jupiter varies our climate and the Moon stabilizes it. All this would happen even if the sun were absolutely constant, which it is not. There are very small [0.1%] solar changes on the scale of decades and centuries and very large changes on the scale of millions to billions of years.

Leif Svalgaard (08:55:24) :
Thank you for the direct answer, it is well noted.
But it does lead to another one, which is, I assume that you have, or can point me to the Solar System Mechanics that directly match up to the Historic Ice Ages and warm periods then, so that I can enrich my understanding and that of the other posters on here?

Tenuc (04:49:09) :… to optimise standard of living and ultimately the number of people the Earth can sustain.
Who in the US is working to optimize the standard of living of people in Burundi?
Who’s goal is it to optimize the number of people the Earth can sustain? What number is “optimum” ?…using expensive clean energy.
Extra cost to each human-being high – Standard of living much lower than present.
Prove that “clean energy” will be expensive in 2060.
Prove that villagers in India will have a standard of living “much lower” than they do now.

Leif Svalgaard (06:48:21) :
“As the gyre expands v decreases so the Lorentz force decreases with it such as the stop the expansion.”
I am not sure about that. Omega (2pi/T) decreases with expansion, while (v = 2piR/T * cos (very, very small angle) should stay constant (longer circumference traversed in more time) if input energy driving the gyre is constant since energy is constant ke=(mv^2)/2

Leif Svalgaard (08:55:24) : @ A C Osborn (07:44:06) :
….because the orbit of the Earth and its axis tilt change with time… Jupiter is the main reason the orbit/tilt varies…..
This would be Milutin Milankovic
Don’t forget Saturn, it does its bit as well.http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/solar-formula.gif
This would be Milivoje Vukcevic

vukcevic (10:09:23) :I am not sure about that.
If you are not sure, how can you say anything reasonable?Omega (2pi/T) decreases with expansion, while (v = 2piR/T * cos (very, very small angle)
What small angle? And if small the ‘cos’ is just 1 and can be neglected. And you have this backwards. Omega does not involve R. v does. And it is v that goes into v x B, not omega. Anyway, calculate the energies involved and you’ll see that the details doesn’t matter.
vukcevic (10:32:23) :Don’t forget Saturn, it does its bit as well.
Nonsense [again]. We are talking about influence on Earth’s orbit and you show your goofy solar ‘activity’ chart, which is irrelevant for the orbital changes.
Poor Milutin would rotate in his grave if he knew what other Serbs spew.

Leif Svalgaard (11:39:13) :
“…What small angle?… Omega does not involve R. v does…”
Omega=const/R (if energy conserved). Proof:
Periodic revolution of a particle around centre can be described as:
A*sin (omega * t) where omega =2*pi*f , frequency f=1/T and T is period of revolution. When revolution slows down omega decreases (larger T gives smaller omega).
Omega is same for all particles within a geodetic plane, while velocity v is a vector made of radial and tangential component and a factor of a radius R (v~ 2piR/T ) at which particle is located. Tangential part is v*cos (very small angle x) , if you ignore the angle (cosx =1), than you have to have sinx=0, hence loosing radial acceleration and particle is not revolving but moving in a straight line. This is equally valid for an ion revolving in a perpendicular and constant B.
If the particle’s orbit radius is changing and if kinetic energy of the particle is not dissipated then:
ke=mv^2=const
v=const
v~ 2piR/T
R/T =const R&T are in reversed proportionality
T = 2piR/v
omega = 2pi*f = 2pi/T = 2pi/ (2piR/v)= v/R
v=const
omega=const/R
Milutin sorted the Earth’s woble, the other great Serb Nikola Tesla sorted out large part of the electromagnetic stuf, so it should not be surprise if a modest atempt is made (by any self respecting Montenegrian Serb) to link two and aply it to the solar woble, at the moment I not know of a better one.

vukcevic (13:31:46) :omega=const/R
So you prove what I say: “omega is not constant”, but decreases as R increases, so the Lorentz force pushing to make R larger decreases in concert resulting in no effect.
But you still did not calculate the energy or work involved. Consider the work done by the Lorentz force. Add that up to an amount of energy and compare that with the kinetic energy in the gyre.at the moment I not know of a better one.
You willful ignorance does you no service and [snip]

Leif Svalgaard (14:19:43) :
“…….calculate the energy or work involved.”
He has indeed calculated, and on face of it, if one was to be too pedantic, one would be obliged to ascertain that energy levels required to satisfactorily past the test, as required by the most rigorous of scientific standards, are to a degree numerically challenged.

Steve Goddard (12:33:54) :
Anu,
NCAR is building their climate supercomputer in coal-fired Wyoming, because Colorado alternative energy makes electricity too expensive.http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/16/ncars-dirty-little-secret/
——–
Interesting.
Although Elizabeth Cheney, Principal Assistant Secretary for Near East Affairs at the State Department claims that her father Dick Cheney never threw around his political weight to get favors for friends and family (especially Halliburton, where Cheney was former CEO), some say that the choice of the University of Wyoming, where VP Cheney got his Bachelors and Masters Degree in Political Science (after flunking out of Yale University) was political.“Having an NCAR supercomputing facility in Wyoming will be transformative for the University of Wyoming, will represent a significant step forward in the state’s economic development, and will provide exceptional opportunities for NCAR to make positive contributions to the educational infrastructure of an entire state,” says William Gern, the university’s vice president for research and economic development.
Gosh, what an opportunity for Wyoming. But why give the opportunity away? Colorado doesn’t want this opportunity? None of the politicians in Colorado want to be able to say to their constituents that they brought “economic development” and “positive contributions to the educational infrastructure of an entire state”? That doesn’t seem right.
Exactly.
Next time, Colorado should produce the single most powerful VP in recent American history, and see how it makes out.
I’m not really shocked that this large construction project, approved during the Bush/Cheney Administration, using federal funds, and run by Cheney’s alma mater, is using so much coal power initially. I’m sure the former VP has all kinds of favors owed to him and his family now in Cheyenne, capital and largest city of his home state:http://www.trib.com/news/state-and-regional/article_cd536e6d-10c0-5cef-8874-bebe63db72e8.html
Once Wyoming wants to make use of its abundant wind energy (some of the best sustained winds in the country), it will be waiting:http://www.windpoweringamerica.gov/wind_maps.asphttp://www.windpoweringamerica.gov/wind_resource_maps.asp?stateab=wyhttp://www.awea.org/faq/wwt_costs.html
According to the American Wind Energy Association, windpower costs less than 5 cents/kWh to produce in the northern Plains, which includes Cheyenne. I’m sure NCAR would be happy to increase that initial 10% wind/solar power level when such cheap windpower in Wyoming is available.

Steve Goddard (12:15:19) :
Steve, for accuracy, the last three lines of “White Rabbit” are not “Keep your head…”
They are, “FEED your head…” As the Airplane was given to encouraging psychotropic sustenance.

Anu (14:59:00) :
You’re just suffering from BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome). The supercomputers require support from a base load pwer supply. The wind farms are not a base load power supply. You can’t have the NCAR supercomputers blowing hot and cold every time the wind farms are idled by winds that don’t blow. Colorado’s power distribution system is already inadequate for their present and future needs without the additional elecrtical load of NCAR’s supercomputer project. Only the fossil fuel plants are capable of supplying the needs of NCAR’s supercomputer project day and night, in summers and winters, and regardless of whether the wind blows.

Anu (14:59:00) :
Yah hear all the time about how cheap wind is… but it just dosnt compute in my head… the biggest wind turbines are 7mw(and that is approaching the material limits.. may be able to pull off 10mw, but no greater on vertical turbines), the bigger hydro turbines are 700mw. So one hundred to one if youre assuming the same stresses and wear and tear as far as maintenance goes… but wind WOULD have far greater vibrational issues, just the thought o the stress’s on those big turbine blades and bearings makes me shudder.
There is the technology available to do away with fossil fuels… but its not wind. Fast Breeder liquid fluoride reactors are the way o the future. You need the energy to make chemical conversion(hydrogen) feasible to have any impact on fossil fuel reliance.

D. Patterson (18:31:58),
That’s exactly right. Wyoming has reliable power; Colorado doesn’t. Fossil fuel power is the most efficient, greenest power available.
I was also surprised at Anu’s BDS, but I guess I shouldn’t be. That’s what passes for science with a lot of the alarmist crowd, who are in reality mad that GWB kicked the AGW can down the road for eight years, when the easy way out would be to make a deal with the devil. Bush was human and had his failings [too profligate with tax money], but he was infinitely preferable to his two unworthy opponents, the kept Mr Heinz-Kerry, and you-know-who.
For Anu to express BDS here at the “Best Science” site deserves special recognition. Thanks.

D. Patterson (18:31:58) :
Anu (14:59:00) :
You’re just suffering from BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome). The supercomputers require support from a base load pwer supply. The wind farms are not a base load power supply. You can’t have the NCAR supercomputers blowing hot and cold every time the wind farms are idled by winds that don’t blow. Colorado’s power distribution system is already inadequate for their present and future needs without the additional elecrtical load of NCAR’s supercomputer project. Only the fossil fuel plants are capable of supplying the needs of NCAR’s supercomputer project day and night, in summers and winters, and regardless of whether the wind blows.
———-
You might want to reread my comment, and see that I was talking about Cheney, not Bush. Welcome to American Politics – ever hear of the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, in Houston, Texas ?
Also, ever hear of peaking power plants ? Wind and solar replace part of the load, not the baseload.
Wind power provided 19.7 percent of electricity production and 24.1% of capacity in Denmark in 2007, a significantly higher proportion than in any other country. Denmark was a pioneer in developing commercial wind
power during the 1970s, and today almost half of the wind turbines around the world are produced by Danish manufacturers such as Vestas.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Denmark
Do you think Denmark is more technologically advanced than the U.S. ?
How about solar power – do you think the Air Force doesn’t understand how to replace fossil fuel power when the sun shines, and how to draw upon it when it doesn’t ?http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/05/obama-shines-light-on-air-forces-super-solar-array/
30 million kilowatt-hours of solar energy per year at Nellis Air Force Base just displaces fossil fuel generated power – yes, electrical grids can do that now.
Arguing that this stuff is just not technically feasible is the wrong approach.

Mike Ewing (18:41:29) :
Yes, it’s a high-tech industry. Precision engineering. Computer aided design. Advanced materials.
Wind is cheap if the siting is easy to build on (as I mentioned, the northern Great Plains), land rather than ocean construction, good steady winds year round (better utilization of the turbines), economies of scale (very large turbines), and close to power load (existing power lines).
Yes, they have 7.5 MW turbines, but those are for offshore applications (The turbines have a diameter of 492 feet. The idea is to manufacture at a port facility, and get them directly onto ships, then install them)http://www.metaefficient.com/renewable-power/the-queen-buys-the-worlds-largest-wind-turbine-75-megawatts.html
Britain is planning to install 33 GW of offshore capacity by 2020.
These huge turbines are being manufactured by an American company:http://www.triplepundit.com/pages/a-mighty-big-wi.php
I think Vestas is a globally respected company precisely because of their long history of quality engineering.
Fast Breeder liquid fluoride reactors might be good, but windpower is growing exponentially, doubling worldwide between 2005 and 2008. I hear the insurance rates for fission reactors is pretty high, and private companies don’t want to deal with it – the government subsidy for insurance is substantial. Windpower is just straightforward, quality engineering.

Leif Svalgaard (18:20:57) :
I was asking you to do it. You are an engineer, right?
There is more than one way to crack a coconut (…to skin a cat, would be calling for cruelty).
Fare thee well, but be back soon, who can tell…

Maybe someone said this:
(100 Cubic KM/ 14,000,000 KM^2)*(1000 Meters/KM)*100 CM/M = .71 cm per year.
AMAZING! Just how the HELL does one make civil engineering measurements this accurate?
SORRY, because of the nature of the terrain, IMPOSSIBLE WITH SATTELLITES also.
THE FIRST PROCLAMATION BY NASA WAS MADE OF METHANE GENERATING MATERIAL. Can we trust anything else?
Max

D. Patterson (18:31:58) :
Anu (14:59:00) :
You might want to reread my comment, and see that I was talking about Cheney, not Bush. Welcome to American Politics – ever hear of the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, in Houston, Texas ?

Although it may suit your purpose to pretend that I and others who dispute you are for some reason incapable of reading and understanding what you actually wrote, the fact remains you directly linked the Bush Administration and its Vice President to the policy decision regarding the supercomputer project and its “coal power” or fossil fueled power supply.

Anu (14:59:00) :
I’m not really shocked that this large construction project, approved during the Bush/Cheney Administration, using federal funds, and run by Cheney’s alma mater, is using so much coal power initially.

You are quite obviously trying to use innuendo and invoke a knee jerk BDS response from the public by implying there just had to be something about the choice of Wyoming and coal fired power generation plants for support of the supercomputer project which necessarily entailed political corruption, a reckless disregard for the environmen,t and dismissal of the capabilities of wind power on the part of VP Cheney and the Bush Administration. Your remarks make no attempt whatsoever to honestly and fairly acknowledge the multitude of reasons why the Wyoming region is uniquely advantageous versus nearly any other location in the United States to support a project of this kind.

Also, ever hear of peaking power plants ? Wind and solar replace part of the load, not the baseload.

Wind power is generally used as an intermediate load power supply, because it is generally unsuitable to displace base load facilities or peak load facilities. The National Reneweable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has studied and experimented with the optimal methods of integrating the wind power facilities into the utilities dispatch schedules. Wind power facilities were found to complicate the dispatch of the more expensive peak load facilities. Although wind power facilities are less expensive with respect to marginal capital and minimal O&M (Operation and Maintenance) costs, their use in the power distribution network results in overall higher costs for the grid because the more expensive intermediate load and peak load facilities must still be deployed, maintained, and operated at even higher costs per unit of power generated when wind power is unable to displace their power loads. The NREL found the load balancing issues presented by the integration of wind power facilities into a utility’s network canceled the other economi benefits and made such wind power facilities unable to achieve an economic breakeven point on its own merits, meaning without the 30% governement interventions and taxpayer subsidies.
So, it appears you don’t have a clue as to what you are talking about.

Wind power provided 19.7 percent of electricity production and 24.1% of capacity in Denmark in 2007, a significantly higher proportion than in any other country. Denmark was a pioneer in developing commercial wind
power during the 1970s, and today almost half of the wind turbines around the world are produced by Danish manufacturers such as Vestas.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Denmark
Do you think Denmark is more technologically advanced than the U.S. ?

Your comments are deceptive, because they omit any mention of the facts about Denmark’s inability to actually make use of 45% to 57% of the power, because of its highly intermittant nature. If you had been honest about it, you would have also reported how the wind power facilities in Denmark provided as little as 5% of Denmark’s annual requirements for electrical power and averages less than about 9.8% in most recent years. You also fail to mention that Denmark’s taxpayers have had to very heavily subsidize the wind power industry, because it’s earnings versus costs made it unable to breakeven much less earn a profit.

How about solar power – do you think the Air Force doesn’t understand how to replace fossil fuel power when the sun shines, and how to draw upon it when it doesn’t ?http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/05/obama-shines-light-on-air-forces-super-solar-array/
30 million kilowatt-hours of solar energy per year at Nellis Air Force Base just displaces fossil fuel generated power – yes, electrical grids can do that now.
Arguing that this stuff is just not technically feasible is the wrong approach.

No, having served at Nellis AFB, what I think is that you have demonstrated yourself to be a dingbat who needs to teach your own grandmother how to to chew tobacco. You certainly don’t understand the very information you are citing. First, the PV (Photo-Voltaic) system began operation as a 14MW facility in a first phase 15MW project. The 30MW capacity is only a future plan. Secondly, the solar PV system is designed to provide an off-grid military mission survivability capability, rather than an economic alternative to fossil fuels and nuclear plants. Although the PV system discontinues about 33% of the prior electric utility bills, the capital and O&M costs for the lifetime of the project are greater than the avoided electric utility costs. In other words, the U.S. Governement spent a ton of money to procure a power system which could support mission critical warfighting capability when the grid is unavailable. It is certainly not in any way a model for how to deliver economically affordable power to the national power grid.

D. Patterson (12:15:51) :
So, you’re saying you’ve never heard of the Johnson Space Center ?
You refuse to acknowledge where Cheney earned his two degrees – the University of Wyoming ? You refuse to acknowledge where he retired to ?
Technical types are often politically clueless – no shame there, DP.
Are you saying 8 MW is a unique requirement that can only be supplied by siting it with the University of Wyoming ?http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/1374175/server_farms_becoming_a_cash_crop_in_the_midwest/
Oh look – server farms and data centers in Oklahoma and Iowa – I wonder why those states didn’t want a high tech research center…
Ever hear of URL’s DP ?
Try backing up your claims that Denmark is unable to actually make use of 45% to 57% of their windpower, for starters.No, having served at Nellis AFB, what I think is that you have demonstrated yourself to be a dingbat who needs to teach your own grandmother how to to chew tobacco.
You were drunk when you wrote that, right ?You certainly don’t understand the very information you are citing. First, the PV (Photo-Voltaic) system began operation as a 14MW facility in a first phase 15MW project. The 30MW capacity is only a future plan.
I said it produced 30 million kilowatt-hours of solar energy per year. 30 MW is power, not energy. Kilowatt-hour is a measure of energy.
Did you serve food at Nellis AFB ?the capital and O&M costs for the lifetime of the project are greater than the avoided electric utility costs. In other words, the U.S. Governement spent a ton of money to procure a power system which could support mission critical warfighting capability when the grid is unavailable.
Nice try, DP.
Again, try using citations on the Web.
Something like this:http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-9829328-54.htmlThe deal is financed by MMA Renewables, which includes equity investments from Citi and Allstate and debt provided by John Hancock Financial Services.
It is a purchase power agreement, or PPA, where Nellis will purchase electricity that the panels generate at fixed rates. The panels themselves are owned by the financiers.
Or this:http://www.nellis.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-090501-098.pdfSaves AF over $1M a year
Developer: Designs, finances, builds and operates the PV array
Lessons Learned:
A REPP (Renewable Energy Purchase Process) like the Nellis model can be used at other DoD installations to purchase the use of on-site renewable energy
Seriously, learn to research on the Internet.
Don’t just make stuff up.Reply: I’m not censoring this to avoid appearing partisan, but this bickering ends now. If it appears partisan later is is simply a coincidence because of multiple moderators. It’s 50/50 that each one of you will feel oppressed. ~ ctm

Massimo PORZIO (07:04:46) :
Anu (22:32:26)
Wrote:
“Try backing up your claims that Denmark is unable to actually make use of 45% to 57% of their windpower, for starters”
Read here:http://www.cepos.dk/fileadmin/user_upload/Arkiv/PDF/Wind_energy_-_the_case_of_Denmark.pdf
Maybe you’ll change your point of view.
———-
Thanks for the link, interesting.
I had read “unable to make use of” as “wasted”, shunted to ground, like nuclear power plants excess power at night, hence my disbelief.Selling windpower to Germany, the Netherlands, Norway or Sweden is not exactly “unable to make use of” – I like the word “exported” better, as used in your link.
Yes it’s true, the more interconnected intermittent power sources are, the better. Wind is not constant, but over large areas, it is blowing somewhere. Denmark is a rather small country of 5.5 million people.
I would call Saudi Arabia a large oil exporter, not someone “unable to make use of” their oil:http://www.eia.doe.gov/cabs/Saudi_Arabia/OilExports.html

Anu (09:21:10) :Selling windpower to Germany, the Netherlands, Norway or Sweden is not exactly “unable to make use of” – I like the word “exported” better, as used in your link.
You are all splitting hairs. Denmark is indeed ‘unable to make use of’ because of intermittent over-production and thus exports in times of surplus. The fundamental reason for not being able to make use of is that with coal fired plants you cannot quickly adjust to large fluctuations [in wind power] as you can with hydroelectric power. The set-up between Denmark and neighbors is a perfect example of good engineering.

Leif Svalgaard (10:08:32) :
Wrote:
“You are all splitting hairs. Denmark is indeed ‘unable to make use of’ because of intermittent over-production and thus exports in times of surplus. The fundamental reason for not being able to make use of is that with coal fired plants you cannot quickly adjust to large fluctuations [in wind power] as you can with hydroelectric power. The set-up between Denmark and neighbors is a perfect example of good engineering”
That’s exactly what the report said. Danish pay the world highest cost for their electric energy because they “must” sell “overproduced” energy at very low prices, and buy the “missed” one during the low windy days at very high costs.

Anu (09:21:10)
Wrote:
“Yes it’s true, the more interconnected intermittent power sources are, the better. Wind is not constant, but over large areas, it is blowing somewhere.”
The more complex is the grid, the more frequent are the failures. It’s just statistics. The Danish power grid is a good example of engineering, but I’m not so sure that it is a good example of efficiency too.

Massimo PORZIO (10:28:12) :Danish pay the world highest cost for their electric energy because they “must” sell “overproduced” energy at very low prices, and buy the “missed” one during the low windy days at very high costs.
Not really true. They don’t ‘have’ to ‘sell’ their extra energy. They could give it away. Getting something for it is better than nothing. As I read the report, they get it back at the same price as they sell it [subject to availability]. Perhaps I missed the ‘very high cost’ bit. Could you show me where?

Look at the Danish Energy Association report:http://www.danishenergyassociation.com/Statistics.aspx
Under Documents, download the PDF file “Statistical Survey 2008”.
Figure 17 – Denmark has lower electricity prices than Germany, Poland, Italy, and is tied with Spain.
Table 8: Exchange of Electricity with Nordic countries (Finland, Norway, Sweden, other)
10,478 GWh exported to, 11,428 GWh imported from.
Is it your contention that Denmark consistently buys high and sells low ?
Figure 21: Denmark has more than tripled exports of energy technology and equipment from 1998.
As for those “frequent grid failures”:The Danish electricity consumers experience a high level of security of supply. The consumers were disconnected for 22 minutes on average in 2008. In 2007 the figure was 27 minutes. Compared to international figures the
security of supply in Denmark is the highest registered in EU. – Page 45

Reply: I’m not censoring this to avoid appearing partisan, but this bickering ends now. If it appears partisan later is is simply a coincidence because of multiple moderators. It’s 50/50 that each one of you will feel oppressed. ~ ctm
———-
Fair enough.

Leif Svalgaard (10:45:55)
wrote:
“They don’t ‘have’ to ’sell’ their extra energy. They could give it away. ”
Yes, of course. Here in Italy we say that way to imply that it is the “minor damage”. I put “must” between the quotes just to evidence that I was writing something not really “to do” but “better to do”. Excuse me, but my English is not so good 🙂
Anyways what you wrote about is exactly what I mean.
you wrote also:
“As I read the report, they get it back at the same price as they sell it [subject to availability]. Perhaps I missed the ‘very high cost’ bit. Could you show me where?”
Maybe I misunderstood the writing on page 22 and followings. As far I understand the exported energy price includes the subsidies paid by the Danish to support the wind power production, so Danish people exports these subsidies (their paid taxes) when exports energy to the “energy storage countries”.

Anu (16:31:49) :
Wrote:
“Figure 17 – Denmark has lower electricity prices than Germany, Poland, Italy, and is tied with Spain”
Yes it’s the energy for manufacturing industries, which is not taxed to maintain the competitivity as explained in the link I sent you before. Please note how (in your reported document, figure 18) only 29% of the total consumption is represented by the manufacturing industries. In the same figure you can also see how Denmark is not so industrialized as the other nordic countries.
Except for the manufacturing industries, all the other users must pay the taxes due to the wind power subsidies, as per the graphic at page 18 of the link I sent you in a former message. There you can see how they are the high-payers in EU because of the taxes needed to make the wind power sustainable.
you wrote:
“The Danish electricity consumers experience a high level of security of supply. The consumers were disconnected for 22 minutes on average in 2008. In 2007 the figure was 27 minutes.”
Yes, of course. But that doesn’t means they have less failure, it does mean that their system is highly reactive. It means that the great engineered system grid works very well, but at which cost?
Have a nice day

Can someone more knowledgable than myself help me understand how comparing the older Antarctic image from 2004 (showing cooling) and the more recent image from 2007 (showing warming) suggests the conclusion that the Antarctic is not warming?
I’m not an AGW proponent and I’m not being snarky, I arrived here looking for documentation to support the idea of Antarctic cooling, but from what I am seeing it appears to the opposite.
Can someone explain in fairly simple terms what I am missing? TIA.

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